The Charleston City Council approved bids for a new, unique water treatment plant Tuesday.

“We want to make the best water in the state of Illinois and we think we can do that,” Mayor Dan Cougill said.

The water treatment plant plans include utilization of ozone, which will require a one year pilot test for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Incorporated will be contributing to the ozone portion of the plant following Tuesday’s council approval.

“The agreement with Mitsubishi was approved,” Cougill said. “Mitsubishi agrees to hold equipment and the equipment costs if the year-long pilot test is successful.”

The council accepted the $9.071 million bid from River City Construction, L.L.C. of Benton, with the understanding that certain parts of the construction plans could be altered and eliminated to lessen costs.

“We told staff that we were accepting bids, but they needed to work with designers and construction and reduce bid by $300,00 to make the construction bid $8.77 million,” Cougill said.

The city also saved a considerable amount of money by accepting bond bids from Harris Bank and Trust of Chicago.

“We received a considerably good interest rate on the bonds,” Cougill said. “We anticipated above four percent and it came in at 3.7 percent, which is a significant savings.”

Bond sales came in as significantly less than expected.

“We anticipated the company that sold the bonds would charge 64,000 and it cost us 4,000,” Cougill said.

Harris Band and Trust was the lowest bidder by far, with many other bids in the $40,000 to $50,000 range.

Construction of the water treatment plant was projected at $9.3 million in general obligation water works and sewage bonds, which are considered alternate revenue sources.

City editor Carly Mullady can be reached at [email protected].