In today's economy, reduction is not exactly a word that brings about excitement. As it relates to the Chandler wastewater treatment facility, however, it's something to celebrate.

The town held a ceremony Saturday to celebrate the beginning of construction on the last phase of its wastewater improvement project. More importantly, though, officials celebrated the numerous reductions the sewer utility has made to keep the cost to ratepayers as low as possible.

"One of the things I'm very proud of, we were looking at a 29 percent rate increase to finish this and as some of you know, this last phase, with everything kicked in, ended up being less than 8 percent," said Rob Coghill, the town's director of public services. "We've listened to what the citizens had to say. There were a lot of concerns; there were a lot of issues. And that's one thing we took back as a group... and said, 'What can we do?'"

Reduce turned out to be the answer. Coghill said the utility's employees have worked tirelessly to reduce day-to-day costs, infiltration that previously strained the system, and construction expenses - by completing some of the work themselves instead of contracting it out.

In addition, the Chandler Town Council worked with key people - legislators, the town attorney, the southwestern Indiana economic development coalition, the town clerk-treasurer, engineers and others - to secure more than half of the $2.6 million project cost in grant money.

"The funding for that, $1.6 million of it came from the Disaster Relief fund, a grant that we received," said Brian Lucas, president of the town council, "and the other part of it we're going to finance ourselves through low interest loans through the State Revolving Fund."

The project will include the construction of a new lab facility, installation of a new emergency generator that will allow the utility to operate at full function in a power outage, and installation of a new screenings washer/compactor. In addition, construction of a new septage receiving facility will help keep sewer rates at bay into the future by generating a new stream of revenue for the operation.

"This is a really good day," said Rob Coghill, the town's director of public services. "It's a fun day from the perspective that we're in the last leg of this plan that we started. This final phase that we're doing now has taken in the needs of the plant, the needs of the future."

The project is expected to take about a year to fully complete.

Coghill thanked his treatment plant operators, Clyde King and Donnie Andrew, for their diligence in helping to come up with a plan to see the utility well into the future.

He also thanked all of the facility's employees, especially the three members of the inflow and infiltration crew, for their hard work and efforts in making the reductions that have helped keep costs down.

"Those three gentlemen, to me, along with Clyde and Donnie, when it comes to our wastewater side, are our key people," said Coghill. "They're very aggressive about wanting to get things done. They want to reduce flows into the plant; they want to correct the problems. And those five are the unsung heroes a lot of the times."