Village of Bayside

The village of Bayside is a north shore community located along Lake Michigan and borders the city of Mequon. Bayside has historically been a ground water community comprised of subdivision wells, and individual home owner wells. A public water system was never installed in the village until the late 1990s when Wisconsin Gas Water Services installed a small voluntary system in the south east corner of the village. Since then, the public water system has slowly expanded, and Mequon purchased the water system. An inter-municipal agreement between Mequon and Bayside allows Mequon Water Utility to own and operates the water system in Bayside.

Grassroots Campaign for Water Leads to Project Success

The south west corner of Bayside had a mixed bag of water systems, and serious water quality issues. A small portion of the area was served by the public water system (Mequon Water Utility), while the rest of the area was a mix between subdivision well systems and individual wells. The subdivision systems were showing signs of failing, maintenance and treatment costs were skyrocketing, and similar to the individual wells, the water quality was undesirable. Several citizens wanted to connect to the public water system however, the expense for extending the public system was too costly. Something needed to be done.

A citizen group led a grassroots effort to build support for the water main extension project throughout their neighborhood. Working together with village leaders, City Water, and Mequon, a creative solution was developed that would make the project affordable if enough residents agreed to connect to the public water supply. Starting with only a small neighborhood interested in the project, one citizen distributed educational materials, internet surveys, conducted neighbor meetings, and door to door visits to help expand the connection area, and increase neighborhood participation. The increase in project participation along with a creative financing package provided an affordable solution to their water problems.

City Water continued to support the citizen group by providing water main design, and construction management/inspection services for the project. Our creative design and strategic bidding procedures resulted in a significant savings to the project participants. It was a huge success for all involved. Here are a few excerpts on the project from Bayside:

Based on the initial cost estimates, the Village adopted a maximum assessment amount of $12,000 per benefiting residential equivalent unit. With the actual project costs finalized, the dollar amount per benefiting property has come in substantially less, as much as 48 percent less depending on the project area and financing option selected by the property owner….. The key factor in the reduction to the cost per benefitting property was the economies of scale achieved through the growth of the (association). For example, had only 111 properties participated, the cost per home would have been $9,304.23 versus the $6,202.82 with 148.

City Water continues to work closely with Bayside, and community leaders, to identify future neighborhoods willing to participate in this grassroots effort to bring safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water to their community.