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It’s just about time for the City Council to pick a route to Lake Michigan for future Joliet water.
Or is it?
The council has a special meeting scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 28, to make a decision that would end a two-year process of selecting a future Joliet water source and begin the process of getting it done by 2030.
But Councilman Pat Mudron this week said he’d like to push back decision day so the council could take a serious look at an option being presented by the Southland Water Agency.
Mudron made his statement at a Tuesday council meeting. No one else said anything, and Mayor Bob O’Dekirk moved on to the next subject.
That all suggests the Jan. 28 vote will proceed as planned.
The Southland Water Agency proposal might be considered a wrench in the water works since it came near the end of yearlong process in which the city team of staff and consultants have been exploring the benefits and disadvantages of two options established in January 2020. Those options were to build a Joliet pipeline to Lake Michigan along the Indiana shoreline or buy Lake Michigan water from the city of Chicago.
If you want to take a look at the analysis and comparisons done in this yearlong review, visit RethinkWaterJoliet.org.
The website set up by the city to keep residents abreast of the city’s search for a new water source to replace the city’s deep wells by 2030 is loaded with information.
Maybe too loaded.
It’s all there, but I can imagine many people drowning in the data and acronyms while trying to make sense of it all.
Still, there have been lots of meetings and presentations with opportunities for public participation, although many times in virtual form due to COVID-19, over the past year.
If you don’t know it already, shame on you for not keeping up with what your city government has been doing, but water rates are going to at least triple in the next 10 years in large part to pay for the Lake Michigan system.
City officials point out that water rates are going up everywhere, including Joliet, with or without a new water system.
But the expectation is that Joliet monthly water rates would rise from about $31 now to somewhere between $90 and $93 by 2030 and to somewhere between $143 and $149 by 2040 depending on whether the city goes with the less expensive Chicago options or the more expensive Indiana intake option.
Why not just stick with the well water that Joliet uses now?
The Illinois State Water Survey projects the aquifer now supplying Joliet will be depleted to the point that it won’t supply enough water on days of highest demand by the year 2030.
And, 2030 is the year that Joliet plans to turn on the spigots for Lake Michigan water.