The Cedar Lake Town Council will hold a special meeting on Tuesday to hear a presentation on the town’s water master plan amid concerns that the town’s water supply is struggling to keep pace with growing development.
The meeting will be informational to educate the public about the town’s water system and to present a plan for addressing the town’s water problem, which was raised by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management last year, said council president Nick Recupito.
“It’s been a long road. These problems pre-date my time on the council and the majority of the council,” Recupito said. “We had issues with the state, which are ongoing, but that’s part of the master plan.”
The special meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 26 at Cedar Lake Town Hall, located at 7408 Constitution Avenue.
The master plan will be presented by officials with Christopher B. Burke Engineering, LLC, Recupito said.
Councilwoman Mary Joan Dickson and Recupito said planning is a good practice in municipal government.
“We just want to inform the residents because there’s so much misinformation out there,” Dickson said. “This administration is striving to keep people in the know.”
Cedar Lake officials and the IDEM have been working to address the town’s water system for nearly two years following a recent IDEM report that found more than a dozen deficiencies in the system.
IDEM inspected Cedar Lake water systems in October 2023 and August 2024, and between the two reports the town’s water system seemingly worsened with the number of deficiencies increasing four times over, from three deficiencies to 14 deficiencies, according to the respective reports.
Recupito previously said he received a letter from IDEM on Aug. 8 that stated the town has a problem with supplying water to the new developments that were approved from 2020 onward. In response, Recupito, two other council members and other town officials met with IDEM to discuss the water issues, he said.
At the meeting, IDEM officials expressed concern about the town’s water capacity given the number of users already on the system and the number of homes under construction that will require water and sewer usage, councilman Richard Thiel, who attended the meeting, previously said.
“Kind of an early warning, red flag kind of issue. Like I tell a lot of people, as far as how we got here, I would say the overdeveloping or fast growth –— which is nice, it’s growing — however, it outgrew the infrastructure,” Thiel previously said. “How we got here? Lack of planning.”
Cedar Lake has two water systems, on the east side and on the west side, and each system has an elevated tower and multiple wells, Recupito previously said. Each system has multiple wells that supply water to each tower, he said.
The two systems aren’t connected, Recupito previously said. But, they serve about 35% of the town’s population, with many homes still on private wells from when the town was unincorporated, he said.
Town officials are working “around the clock” to address the water issues with IDEM, Recupito previously said.
“We just moved too fast, and now the chickens came home to roost,” Recupito previously said. “It all stems from planning that was lacking.”
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