The Oak Park Elementary School District 97’s Board of Education approved the Village of Oak Park’s request to construct an emergency generator at the North Pumping Station on the grounds of Hatch Elementary School.
The request was unanimously approved by the board at its Aug. 13 meeting. Construction is not expected to begin until 2025. The Village of Oak Park will fund the project.
The North Pump Station is an underground drinking water reservoir and pumping station, located at the intersection of Ridgeland Avenue and Berkshire Street at the Hatch playground and green space between the two baseball fields.
John Pahlman, senior director of buildings and grounds at D97, said during the board meeting that the addition of the generation is part of a “safety factor” for the residents of Oak Park.
Bill McKenna, assistant director of the public works department and village engineer for Oak Park, said the Village and school district first agreed in December 1961 to the installation and operation of the underground water reservoir and an above ground pumping station at the Hatch playground.
In the official request to the district, made by McKenna via email on Aug. 8, minutes from the board meeting from Dec. 11, 1961, were included, showing the approval by the then-board of education. However, McKenna said copies of the agreement cannot be found by either D97 nor the Village.
“We really do want to sit down with the school and revisit that agreement so we can have an agreement in place going forward for that existing reservoir and pump station in the future,” McKenna said.
As per the request for the emergency generator, Illinois law community water supplies must have emergency standby power at the pump stations in order to provide drinking water during power outages. The requirement is in Illinois Administrative Code Title 35, Part 604, Subpart A, Section 604.155 Electrical Controls and Standby Power.
To comply with this code, the Village designed the North Pumping Station Generator Addition Project to add the emergency generation to the southeast side of the North Pump Station.
The Village began receiving bids for the project in May 2024 and chose to go with Connelly Electric Co. for $420,000, of which the financial responsibility solely falls on the Village.
McKenna said the Village has not signed a contract yet as they were waiting for approval from the board.
According to agenda documents, once the project is completed the Village will maintain the new facilities, including the new fence, grounds within the fenced area, and the new sidewalk along the south side of the existing pump station. D97 was added as an additional insured per contract’s requirements.
Due to long lead times to receive an emergency generator, construction on the project is not expected to start until Spring 2025. Construction is not expected to impact Hatch.
“There will be a little bit of traffic with equipment to unload, cement being poured but it will be very low impact,” Pahlman said, adding it is all very “small routine work.”