The Lansing Board of Water & Light is a publicly owned, municipal utility that provides electricity and water to the residents of the cities of Lansing and East Lansing, Michigan, and the surrounding townships of Delta, Delhi, Meridian and DeWitt. The Lansing Board of Water & Light also provides steam and chilled water services within the City of Lansing. History The Lansing Board of Water & Light is a municipal utility, owned by the citizens of Lansing, Michigan. The utility's roots go back to 1885, when Lansing citizens approved a $100,000 bond issue to build a water system to provide for drinking water and fire protection. Electricity was added to its list of utility services in 1892, and steam heat in 1919. System Information The Lansing Board of Water & Light has an electric generating capacity of 510 megawatts. The BWL's transmission line voltage is 138,000 volts. The BWL's distribution voltages are 13,200/7,620Y, 8,320/4,800Y and 4,160/2,400Y. The Lansing Board of Water & Light pumps an average of approximately 23 million gallons per day (MGD) from two conditioning plants through approximately of water main. Maximum daily demand is on the order of 33 MGD, while the maximum hourly demand rate can be on the order of 42 MGD. Raw water is obtained exclusively by pumping from 124 wells located throughout the Lansing area. All system pressure is generated via pumping; the Lansing Board of Water & Light does not maintain any elevated water storage tanks. Water Utility The Lansing Board of Water & Light obtains all raw water from a series of wells located throughout the city of Lansing, making it one of the few public utilities for large cities that provides water exclusively from wells. The city sits atop, and draws its water from, the Saginaw Aquifer, a natural, but limited, underground reservoir , and in size. The raw water is pumped directly to two conditioning plants: the John Dye plant located in downtown Lansing and the Wise Road plant located on the southwest side of the city. At these plants, water hardness is reduced from approximately 411 parts per million (ppm) to about 85 ppm. The finished water is then chlorinated and fluorinated, and sent to storage prior to distribution. At the John Dye conditioning plant, two pumping stations draw finished water from three ground level storage facilities and pump to the distribution system. The Dye pump station, pumps