The city of Rochelle and Rochelle Municipal Utilities are moving toward three large-scale water projects that will take place in the coming years.

The Rochelle City Council last month approved its intent to borrow funds for the three projects: the drilling of a new water well and construction of a new well house, water main replacement on North Illinois Route 251 in conjunction with the state’s reconstruction of the road, and the state-mandated replacement of lead and galvanized service lines.

Funds will be borrowed from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for the projects. The well project is estimated to cost about $4.68 million, while the Illinois Route 251 project is estimated to cost $2 million and the lead service line project is estimated to cost about $4 million, for a total of $10.76 million across all three projects. The loans will likely see 30% forgiveness on the well and Illinois Route 251 projects and 100% forgiveness on the service line replacement project.

The Illinois Route 251 water main replacement project will take place from December 2026 to August 2027. The new well project will take place from December 2026 to October 2027. The first phase of the water line replacements will take place from December 2026 to July 2027 and the second phase will run from December 2027 to August 2028.

Last year, the council approved a resolution designating a parcel for the future drilling and development of the new water well (Well 13) and a $356,000 engineering agreement with Willett, Hofmann & Associates for the project.

Well 13 will be located on Technology Parkway north of the Petro Travel Plaza. The 2-acre parcel is currently owned by the city and has been sitting vacant for approximately 15 years. The location was chosen to allow for future development and to mitigate pressure issues from dead-end water mains in the area. The new well is being drilled to meet peak demand, increase redundancy and relieve other well pumps and equipment. The city drilled its last new well in 2013 (Well 12).

RMU Superintendent of Water/Water Reclamation Adam Lanning said he expects drilling to take place in late fall 2026 or early spring 2027. Construction on the new well house will start after drilling, and construction will take a year to a year and a half. RMU is working with Illinois State University on the project to identify the geology that water will be pulled from to avoid radium.

“ISU did a study in 2019 and we worked with their hydrogeology department to try and figure out where and how the radium was getting into our wells,” Lanning said. “We have a pretty good understanding and we’re going to do our best to avoid having to build a radium removal plant. A new radium removal plant would be an additional $4 million to $5 million, just in up-front capital costs and not counting operational costs such as chemicals.”

Lanning said the new well will ensure that “the city’s water supply is never jeopardized.” The well will be Rochelle’s sixth in operation, will increase water supply and be a “secure and continuous” water supply.

“It will give some redundancy to our other wells,” Lanning said. “It will give a break to the wells that are running almost continuously. We can spread the demand out over numerous wells. The biggest thing is the security. It will be the city’s last new well for a while.”

The state is currently slated to reconstruct and widen Illinois Route 251 on Rochelle’s north side in the coming years. Approximately 7,400 feet of new water main will be installed, from Starbucks to Flagg Road. The water main will be installed after the state tears the road up.

Lanning said that area has seen “numerous” water main breaks over the years and he estimates the current water main has been in place since the 1950s or 1960s.

“You wouldn’t want to build a new road over an old water main,” Lanning said. “The state is reconstructing this road and it’s a big job and we won’t have to worry about replacing the water main again in our lifetimes. I’m going to be happy to have it done. Any time you have a main break on a busy road like that one, it’s more expensive. You have to have traffic control and more set up and it’s more dangerous.”

A recent state program required municipalities to assess and eventually replace lead and galvanized water service lines. The city found five lead and 267 galvanized service lines needing replacement in Rochelle. Lanning hopes to see them all replaced over a two-year period.

The city determined the makeup of all water service lines in Rochelle while doing a water meter replacement project in recent years.

“The lead and galvanized service line project has been mostly about gathering data on what we have in our system,” Lanning said. “We really didn’t have a good handle before on what was in our system. It worked out very well coordinating it with the water meter replacement project. I expected to have more water service lines to replace. I’ve heard of some communities having far more than we did. I think we got kind of lucky. A lot of services have been replaced over the years.”

Engineering for the new well drill and water main replacement is partially complete. Lanning said loan funding for the projects is “75-80%” secured and the city will know in the coming months if it will see best terms on the loans.

The city and RMU have recently worked to take advantage of IEPA loans with favorable terms for water projects. Approximately $20 million has been invested in RMU water infrastructure in the past 5-7 years, seeing 30-100% loan forgiveness, Lanning said.

“That’s really important, because it translates to a homeowner’s water bill,” Lanning said. “For every project that we don’t have to pay back multimillions of dollars, we don’t have to raise homeowners’ water bills to pay that loan back. That’s our whole goal. We have to invest. We have to rebuild our infrastructure. It’s aging and some of it is over 100 years old. But at the same time we have to do it responsibly so a homeowner doesn’t get shocked with a 100-plus dollar a month water bill.”