EAST CHICAGO | After more than four years of preparation, officials broke ground Wednesday for a state-of-the-art water filtration plant in North Harbor.

The $55 million facility will provide the purest drinking water currently available, said Al Velez, city utilities director, and demolishing the existing 45-year-old lakefront water works will open up greater public access to Lake Michigan.

Nathaniel "Ned" Ruff, an attorney and former adviser to Mayor George Pabey, firmly believed the former water works' 10-acre site could be better used, Velez said, and proved that it would be cheaper to build a new plant elsewhere than the existing location. Ruff died in 2006.

The Nathaniel "Ned" Ruff Water Treatment Facility will occupy 7 acres along Block Avenue -- donated by the Redevelopment Commission -- and is scheduled to open in the spring of 2011.

Plans call for a new pumping station adjacent to the former Field Elementary School to pull water from Lake Michigan, a 54-inch tunnel to carry raw water to the plant, where 17 million gallons per day will be purified through a high-tech microfilter system, and a 3 million-gallon storage tank.

The project will be funded through a state loan program that provides low-interest financing for municipal infrastructure projects, money from the North Harbor tax increment financing district, casino taxes and a grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers secured by U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.

"This wouldn't have happened if the mayor hadn't asked for money," Visclosky said Wednesday. "And kept asking for money."

Visclosky said he was happy to help further Pabey's vision of what East Chicago can be, opening up Lake Michigan for people to enjoy and encouraging investment in the city.

"I said that I wanted to open up the beach," Pabey said. "And (Redevelopment Director) John Artis and Ned started working on it ... and they worked on it hard."

The project is part of a bigger picture of reclaiming the lakefront, said Bill Hanna, executive director of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, and is "proof-positive that we can do this with our own resources."

Work is scheduled to begin this summer, said Chris Murphy, of Indianapolis-based American Structurepoint, engineer for the project.

"We've heard about plans for years," said Brian Marciniak, Water Department director. "And now they're coming to fruition."