DECATUR - Visionary. Daring. Opportunistic.

That's how Keith Alexander, the city's director of water management, characterizes a plan recently unveiled to provide for the community's future water needs.

The idea has been trickling along for several years.

But it has taken on a new urgency with an unusually dry summer and forecasts to the year 2025 that suggest the city has a 10 percent chance of not having enough water for customers during a severe drought.

The plan to store more water would flow out of the city's mammoth project to dredge Lake Decatur.

"It was a stroke of good fate that the dredging project came ahead as it did," said former Councilman Nick Burton, who serves as chairman of the Water Resources Advisory Committee. "It literally takes two significant public works projects and rolls them into one."

Here's how the plan would work:

The dredging project seeks to remove the equivalent of more than 263,000 semitruck loads of sediment over the next decade or so, increasing the lake's storage capacity by about 16 percent.

But the silt removed from the lake has to be piped somewhere.

Currently, silt and water are piped nearly three miles to a storage site in Oakley Township.

As the dredge moves to southern regions of the lake, a new sediment storage site south of Lake Decatur will be needed.

The city proposes converting that sediment storage site into a water storage site about 640 acres in size, which could provide about 10,000 acre feet of storage capacity. The lake currently can hold about 21,000 acre feet of water when full.

And the plan could mean savings for taxpayers.

A separate site would cost about $19.7 million, but a converted site would cost about $12.2 million, according to city estimates.

According to the plan, the water storage site would take advantage of excess water from the Sangamon River during high flow, which would supplement Lake Decatur during periods of severe drought. This plan also would limit the impact on communities downstream of Decatur that also depend upon the Sangamon River for their water supplies.

Economic growth from the additional water supply could compensate the city several times over for its initial investment, city administrators say.

The plan was unveiled to Decatur City Council members at their Aug. 1 meeting and will be studied in-depth by the council in September.

"I wouldn't say this project is as monumental as the construction of the lake in the 1920s, but it would certainly be second in line," said Assistant City Manager Dane Bragg. "It's creating a water supply that will be there that will help serve this community for the next 50 years."

Improving the community's water supply is important for retaining major employers, Bragg said.

It also could be a tool to help market the community to other prospective industries, said John Smith, assistant city manager for public services.

Big water customers include some of the community's top employers such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Tate & Lyle.

"The economic impact of a water shortage would be profound when you look at the prospect of one of our major employers having to shut down temporarily because water wasn't available," Bragg said. "That affects every part of the community."

"Their work requires them to have an adequate water supply. Time is money for them."

The new water storage site, which could be located somewhere south of the lake, also could be an ideal draw for moderate to upscale housing, Alexander said.

"Typically lake frontage, whether on Lake Decatur or other smaller bodies of water, offers tremendous property value enhancement opportunities," Alexander said.

In the meantime, this season's dry summer serves as a reminder of what could be on the horizon for the city.

"The drought's not over, not for us," Smith said. "The lake level is still in good shape, but the flow in the Sangamon is extremely low."

Mike Frazier can be reached at mfrazier@;herald-review.com or 421-7985.