Joliet Picks Chicago For Future Water Source

(The following edited news release was issued by the city of Joliet on Thursday night.)

JOLIET, IL — Over the past year the City of Joliet has evaluated two Lake Michigan sources to supply the City with water in the future. At a special meeting of the Joliet City Council on Thursday night the Council voted to select the City of Chicago Department of Water Management to provide Joliet with Lake Michigan water by 2030.

Councilman Larry Huge made a motion to go with Hammond and his colleagues did not support him. A vote to go with Chicago was approved in a 7-1 vote with Hug being the only vote against Chicago.

"I supported the Hammond project when you look at the real numbers it's far less expensive the next 35 years, 50 years, 100 years, for each individual homeowner," Hug told Joliet Patch after the meeting. "It's the obvious choice when you actually crunch the numbers."

According to the city of Joliet's news release, Joliet will reap the benefits of the state-of-the-art Eugene Sawyer Water Purification Plant. The facility includes a microbiology and chemistry lab that continuously tests the water for safety. The Chicago Department of Water Management has over 2000 employees working 24/7 to reliably deliver high quality drinking water to all of its customers. New infrastructure will be built near the existing Chicago Southwest Pumping Station to convey water to Joliet via 31 miles of new water transmission mains to be owned, operated and maintained by the City of Joliet.

"We are excited to partner with the City of Chicago. This decision gives the citizens of Joliet all the knowledge and resources of a system that purifies and distributes over 1 billion gallons of water each day to over 5.3 million residents in northeast Illinois,” said Mayor Bob O’Dekirk. “We are excited to be a leader in the development of a long-term water supply for ourselves and the region. Our future and the future of all who live here will be better because of the decisions we made today."

The next phase of work will begin immediately to establish the framework for the implementation of the new water system to provide Lake Michigan water to Joliet residents by 2030. Preliminary engineering activities include siting and routing for the improvements, updating the funding strategy, developing permitting and environmental plans, and ongoing evaluation of a regional water system. A preliminary schedule of work to be completed to bring Lake Michigan water to Joliet can be found on the program website at www.RethinkWaterJoliet.org.