By: Diane Benjamin

In case you saw some on-line geniuses claims the $2,000,000 BNWRD gave to the Children’s Discovery Museum wasn’t really $2,000,000 – the real story is worse. BNWRD borrowed that $2,000,000 so with interest the real cost is higher: PDF page 37: https://blnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/September-2026-Board-Packet-reduced-size-1.pdf

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You probably know the local Boys and Girls Club decided to buy the Trinity Lutheran property instead of building.

I bet you didn’t know this:

July 8, 2024 BNWRD Board packet – PDF page 93: https://blnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/July-8-2024-Board-Packet.pdf

FYI – BlnNews is the ONLY place where BNWRD documents can be found.

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Obviously they didn’t get the grant. This does reveal why the country is $40 Trillion in debt. Somebody probably got that $2 billion and we got the bill.

The EPA website has a list of 2801 organizations the applied for part of that $2 billion, Bloomington Normal Water Reclamation District is on the list. https://www.epa.gov/foia/environmental-justice-grants-foia-records-repository-and-external-civil-rights-docket

I don’t see a list of who received grants. Hopefully that giveaway was terminated because Climate Justice is a made up name to justify handing money to friends.

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Here’s more BNWRD spending I briefly covered in this story: https://blnnews.com/2026/05/26/what-bloomington-is-doing-for-citizens-tonight/

Sunnyside Park is getting a makeover for the low cost of $7,532,096.92. Description:

WHEREAS, the Sunnyside Park Sustainability Initiative will transform the Sunnyside Park into a 12-acre hub for recreation, education, and environmental stewardship

IDNR awarded a $600,000 grant but BNWRD wasn’t eligible to apply so the City of Bloomington did. Bloomington put this project out for bid and only received one bid for the amount above. BNWRD claims they have the money to pay for this project over 3 years. How? Thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking

See letter “N” for all the documentation on this project: https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4116/files/agenda/12728

See the Bid Tabulation. What is in Sunnyside Park now is going to be destroyed and rebuilt.

Why is BNWRD doing this?

Go back to this month’s BNWRD meeting agenda on the funding to the Children’s Discovery Museum: https://blnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/September-2026-Board-Packet-reduced-size-1.pdf

PDF page 211 – The EPA told them to:

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Community engagement doesn’t exist when meeting documentation is only available on BlnNews. Educating the public means video of meetings posted on line so people who want to see what’s happening can. Trust and transparency isn’t enhanced by spending many millions supposedly educating kids.

The EPA has too many employees if they believe social equity is their job. Who is underserved? The people who have raw sewage in their basements because the sewer project isn’t complete yet?

Equity is Marxism, socialism, or worse. In America nobody is equal except when they are born. Government’s job isn’t to make them equal – all the above does is make everyone equally poor. Schools don’t study actually history because it’s a secret.

If you want children to explore career paths, offer summer internships to high school students. Children at the museum aren’t there to plan their future. They want entertained in way that might teach them something. Careers aren’t on their radar.