During 1989, the Board of Trustees approved a transfer to the City of Laurens in the amount of $600,000.00 to help build the new water plant, also approved was $350,000.00 loan to the City for the water plant. In September 1996, $238,938.64 of principal & interest was forgiven on the loan to the City from the Light Plant.

The Light Plant contracted $100,000.00 to the Laurens Industrial Foundation fund drive for the Community Center - Ball Field Project. The ball fields, 1 baseball & 2 softball, are nearly completed including lighting on two fields at this time.

At the encouragement of the Board of Trustees, the City Council established a Parks & Recreation Board to oversee the City Parks, swimming pool, and cemetery. The Light Plant agreed to fund the departments under the direction of the Parks & Recreation Board for a five-year period, funding approved for recent years averages $50,000.00.

Three lots were purchased at the corner of third & Olive by the Light Plant with the location of the new medical clinic in mind. The old Standard Station was leveled & the property used as a temporary site by Mercy Family Care. Then all three lots were donated to Lake Mills Investors, who have just completed construction of a new medical clinic for Mercy Health Systems.

During 1990, a second sub-station was added to Laurens' municipal electric system. The new West Substation is located adjacent to the NW Railroad tracks west of Nelson Street. Four tenths of a mile of 69,000 volt line was built, 5000 KVA transformer installed, 12.5KV switch gear installed (providing three additional distribution circuits & a 12.5 KV tie back to the original Substation at the Power Plant) & a Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition System installed at a total cost of over 3/4 of a million dollars.

In 1991, the old diesel fuel tanks were removed & a new double-walled 8000-gallon tank was installed with all-new piping & day tanks in the basement of the Light Plant. The two 750KW diesel generators have been well maintained over the years & are still accredited for their full rated capacity at their age of nearly 50 years old.

In 1998 Laurens reached another milestone when the second 69,000-volt transmission line was connected between the Laurens Municipal Light & Power substations & the Cornbelt Power Cooperative System. For the first time in history Laurens could be fed full capacity electric power from two separate directions. The new line was constructed over a four-year period, runs approximately 22 miles west to near Linn Grove.

Also in 1998 during construction of the new hybrid fiber optic and coaxial cable communications system, about 15 miles of underground high voltage cable was replaced. Most of the original high voltage cable was installed in 1971 & 1975 & had an expected life of 15-20 years. Also installed were several pad-mounted switches on the system for safer & faster switching during planned & emergency operations.

In March 1999 the Light Plant transferred, through the City of Laurens, to the Industrial Foundation $23,500.00 to fund the purchase of property adjacent to Highway 10 at Fourth Street for Trimark Physicians to build a new medical clinic.