Joliet is nearing the end of a yearlong study of two options for Lake Michigan water with no clear favorite emerging.
Joliet is weighing whether to buy water from Chicago or build its own pipeline to the Lake Michigan shoreline in Hammond, Indiana, as the City Council plans to make its choice at a special meeting on Jan. 28.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. made strong appeals to the City Council on Thursday.
If the council was swayed one way or the other, it didn’t show it.
“They are both solid, good options for the city of Joliet,” Mayor Bob O’Dekirk said at the end of the meeting after both mayors had left.
The city has extended the public comment period on its future water source to Jan. 19 in order to hear more from the public. It was to end Dec. 14.
So far, public opinion isn’t pushing for one option or the other, Councilwoman Sherri Reardon said.
“No one was really adamant about one or the other being the source, but they were very excited about Lake Michigan water,” Reardon said Thursday.
The mayors of Chicago and Hammond were adamant.
“We want to make this happen in part because we want your business,” Lightfoot told the council. “We believe a partnership with the city of Joliet would be one of great value for both sides.”
Lightwood used the phrase “world class” more than once, emphasizing Chicago expertise in providing Lake Michigan water to the Chicago region with a staff of 2,000 employees, including engineers and chemists.
“We’re so serious about the taste of our water that we even have our chemists include a smell test,” Lightfoot said at one point.”
“We test every 15 minutes every day without fail,” she added later.
McDermott appealed to the common qualities Joliet and Hammond share.
“We’re both blue collar communities,” he said early in his presentation.
“Neither of us have the Magnificent Mile. Neither of us have the Cubs or the White Sox,” he said near the end.
But going through Hammond to get Lake Michigan water instead of buying it from Chicago would give Joliet “water independence” in the long run with the ability to set its own water rates, he said.
McDermott pointed to Hammond’s own success in treating Lake Michigan water, saying Joliet could do the same by building the pipeline to Lake Michigan.
Joliet would not buy water from Hammond. But it would be buying access to Lake Michigan through Hammond.
Joliet would pay $9.9 million over nine years starting in 2021 to Hammond, according to a prospectus on the Indiana plan on the city website rethinkwaterjoliet.org. After that, Joliet would pay annual fees that would start at $390,000 in 2032 and would rise to $1 million by 2079.
The Joliet study already estimates rate increases to pay for construction costs involved in both plans.
Monthly rates now averaging about $30 by 2030 would be just under $90 under the Chicago plan a just over $93 with the Hammond plan.