Did you know?
If you use a low-flow showerhead, you can save 15 gallons of water during a 10-minute shower.
Water Quality Report Rates Lead Water
In 1912 the City started adding chlorine to the water, this was to aide in cleaning the water. The chlorine was applied to the water in the Pump Station and was the only treatment done to purify the water until the Treatment Plant was built in 1976. Prior to the construction of the Treatment Plant if the water was too dirty to treat with chlorine alone, the pumps would be stopped and the 70 million gallon capacity distribution system would be drawn down for a day or so until the lake had cleared up sufficiently to resume operations. This was obviously not an ideal way to treat drinking water for a population of around 100,000 people, so a rapid sand filtration plant was built across the highway from the pump station to accomplish this.
The Lakewood Water Treatment Plant cost about $6.3 million with the majority of the cost funded by State and Federal grants. The main reason for building the plant was to provide a safe, reliable source of drinking water for Duluth and the three other communities it supplies water to; Rice Lake Township, Hermantown and Proctor.
Today the Lakewood Water Treatment Plant provides an average of about 16 million gallons of treated drinking water per day. An expansion completed in 1992, allows it to provide a maximum of about 34 million gallons of treated water per day. Every gallon of water processed at the Lakewood Plant surpasses EPA and State of Minnesota regulations for drinking water. When the water is ready to be pumped into the first portions of the distribution and reservoir system, pumps in the unique 1895 Pump Station push the water on its way. A series of booster pumps and a tiered system of reservoirs and tanks bring that water to neighborhoods as far apart as Lester Park and Fond Du Lac or Proctor and Park Point.The Lakewood Water Treatment Plant and Pump Station is located on the north shore of Lake Superior just north of Duluth. Since 1898 all of Duluth's drinking water has been drawn from this location. Before 1898, Duluth's drinking water was mostly drawn from a location near 15th Ave E, along with a smaller intake at 5802 London Rd.
