Years of cooperative effort from volunteers, local agencies, and a band of small communities paid off last June with the groundbreaking for the Bond-Madison Water Company. Phase I of the project will provide water to eight communities and more than 650 rural households.

Lynn Weis sits with her back to a blank computer screen in a small room at the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service in Bond County. Slightly disheveled piles of paper checker the surface of her desk, fanning out to form a multi-colored ball diamond. Priority items are at bat, end-of-the-week papers are stacked at center, and a flier advertising last year's forage expo is buried in far right field.

In October 1993 a new player stepped up to the plate.

The Bond-Madison Water Company began as a small group of rural landowners in search of water. Their own wells held water with an exceptionally high mineral content, when they held water at all.

Four years, a few thousand volunteer hours, and $10.7 million later, the not-for-profit water distribution company is an excellent example of what can be accomplished through community cooperation.

"It's kind of like a marriage," Weis says, referring to the cooperative approach to problem solving. "If everybody does their part, it all works out in the best way." She shifts a paper from third base to home.

Weis, who serves as unit leader for the Bond County CES, said her office was asked to play the part of instructor — to handle the educational component of the project. Weis's office developed surveys with questions regarding easement rights, usage estimates, level of interest, and expense. Volunteers from various townships in the county were recruited, trained, armed with the surveys, and sent out to talk with their neighbors.

The surveys drew an immediate response. As word of the project spread, queries were directed to two offices: Cooperative Extension Service and Southwestern Electric Cooperative.

"Southwestern was a part of it from the very beginning," recalled Brenda Bunyard, president of the Bond-Madison Water Company. Bunyard explained that Southwestern Electric had organized the initial meeting between landowners after learning of the widespread concern among area residents. She said the electric cooperative also played a large part in rolling the project's local momentum into the neighboring county.

"Madison County's interest in the project started out in Pierron," Bunyard said, citing a small community which straddles the Bond-Madison county line, "then moved further into the county."

Then the project was highlighted in Southwestern Electric's newsletter.

"That really started the phone ringing," she recalled. Most of the callers posed the same question: "Can we get in on this?" Bunyard said thousands of phone calls were routed through Southwestern

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Electric. Many of them were fielded by marketing and member services director Sandy Nevinger. CES also enlisted the aid of a sibling agency, the Bond County Soil and Water Conservation Service, to provide technical support.

By now the direction of the project became more refined, the teamwork better coordinated. A steering committee which had guided the project's initial efforts evolved into a formal board with directors representing each of the eight participating communities and several townships in Bond county. The board worked as a team, focusing on obtaining water line easements, tap-on fees, and funding.

The village of Pocahontas, which had been forced to place a moratorium on new homes to avoid additional stress on community wells, was the first to secure a major grant. In 1995, the village was awarded a $400,000 grant through the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs (DCCA). A year later, Shoal Creek Township, with help from the Bond County board of directors, received an identical grant.

Using the DCCA grants as seed money, the Bond-Madison Water Company appealed to the U. S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Development division for additional funds, which it received in the form of a low-interest $6 million loan.

"There's such a demand for our financing and so many water systems needing improvements that the regional approach is the most cost effective way to get water to everybody," noted Mike Wallace, a rural development specialist with the USDA office in Nashville, IL. Wallace, who began working with the Bond-Madison project in January 1994, said electric cooperatives have figured prominently in the formation of a number of water districts. "They've been providing more and more help to these rural systems," he said. "They know the people out in these areas. And they recognize that this is the next thing that needs to come through to benefit their customers."

The not-for-profit water distribution company is an excellent example of what can be accomplished through community cooperation.

David Chicoine, dean of the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Economic Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois, wasn't surprised that the cooperative extension office in Bond County also recognized the need and took measures to meet it. Chicoine said one of the most significant roles extension plays in a community is that of facilitator — the partner who brings other partners together.

"That's always been a strength of the community development programs in extension, and it will continue to be," Chicoine said, noting that throughout the organization's evolution, extension's core purpose has remained unchanged. "I think its primary role still is helping people put knowledge to work to improve their quality of life," he said.

Dennis Campion, interim director of Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Illinois, added that much of the organization's success could be attributed to the individual councils which guide each unit. "They're made up of dedicated volunteers who have a genuine interest in the community and the development of that community," he said. Campion said he saw cooperative efforts playing an integral role in extension's future. "I think it's going to behoove us to partner with local government and local agencies that have as their agenda item an increase in economic development and growth," he said.

Weis also explained how, through a kind of cross-pollination, the influence of an extension council extends beyond its immediate reach. "A lot of times these people are sitting on other committees. They bring what's going on with those committees to our council meetings." Conversely, they also carry extension issues and experiences to other areas of the community.

Weis's own experience has taught her to be both patient and persistent when dealing with large tasks. "An issue is something that's not going to go away. Over a long period of time, you hit it in a lot of different ways. It comes back to people talking to each other — finding common ground," she said, summing up her views on problem solving. "A majority of it," she added, "comes back to community."

The name game

A recent recommendation from the University of Illinois Chancellor's Commission on Extension may seem a bit puzzling to anyone familiar with Cooperative Extension Service. The commission, which conducted a comprehensive study of CES policy last year, recommended that the agency drop the "Cooperative" from its name.

Dennis Campion, interim director of CES, suggested the proposed name change has more to do with punctuation than policy. In short, the title may be too long.

"It's still very much a cooperative," Campion said. "We wouldn't want to lose that distinction were we to change our name. And from the service standpoint, it may more accurately broadcast what it is we are working with communities and local citizens to achieve," he added.

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