By JEAN HOCKENSMITH
Oct. 24, 2000 (Chicago Daily Herald)—Denise Carney attended the recent Salt Creek Sanitary District Open House with her daughter, Caitlin, 6, and her son, Raymond, 4, because Caitlin "always had a fascination with where the pipes go."
"It's Water Quality Awareness Month. Periodically, we'll have open house to invite people in to see what we do," said Fred Dale, who has been with the sanitary district for 26 years, the last 13 as manager. "People don't know what we do. They flush the toilet or wash the dishes and forget about it. We treat the wastewater for Villa Park. We're trying to do our part to protect the environment."
According to Dale, each open house draws between 50 to 100 people to tour the plant that treats 3 million gallons of water a day and removes 98 percent of the pollutants while keeping the electric bill down to $12,000 a month.
"The district has been in existence since 1921.
In the 1920s, this was the Villa Park garbage dump, and in the middle of the dump was a trickling filter," Dale said. "The plant has been added onto five or six times. It's constantly changing, as regulations change. We treat water 24 hours a day."
After Raymond, clad in the cowboy suit intended for his Halloween costume, and Caitlin shared a large sprinkle-covered doughnut at the Oct. 7 open house, they joined the first of many tours through the Salt Creek Sanitary District.
"In DuPage County alone, there are 28 treatment plants," Dale said as he enthusiastically led the first tour through the plant, where he started as "low man on the totem pole."
A humorous part of the tour came first as Dale showed everyone a ledge filled with items such as $1 million in play money, balls, beads and false teeth that ended up in toilets and flowed into the plant with the raw sewage.
"We occasionally find real money - 10s or 20s," Dale said. "And we tell the kids when they come through on tours if they're doing that, keep it up because we wash it off and go out to lunch."
As a co-chair of the Illinois Water Environmental Association public education committee, Dale is serious about implementing a water awareness course targeted for seventh- through ninth-graders in about 80 Illinois schools.
Children and adults who take the Salt Creek Sanitary District tour learn that Lake Michigan water comes to Villa Park, is used and then treated before being pumped into Salt Creek.
"We're an important part of the water cycle," Dale said of the plant that "mimics Mother Nature" by using "oxygen, gravity and natural bacteria" to clean water.
The most appreciative of the treated water is the Salt Creek wildlife, such as the school of red-tailed carp that lives near the plant.
"We get a lot of snapping turtles that come up out of the creek. They like to come in the sand and lay their eggs," Dale said. Deer, coyotes, foxes and beaver pass by the plant as they "travel the creek."
Salt Creek Sanitary District "services Villa Park, but is separate from the village." It is governed by a board of three trustees and claims one permanent pet known as "Earl the squirrel."
"He's the fattest squirrel around. He'll eat right out of your hand," Dale said, who managed to have the public eating out of his, as he guided a tour of the plant that he knows like the back of his hand.
© 2000 Chicago Daily Herald via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.
