Sycamore City Council supports proposed water main replacement, road repair program

SYCAMORE – The Sycamore City Council supported moving forward with engineering plans for a proposed water main replacement and road repair program in areas where residents previously have complained about water quality issues.

Sycamore City Manager Brian Gregory said the proposed five year water main replacement program started with the city’s water master planning in 2019, which was aimed at determining where the best bang for our buck is as far as replacing water main that’s underground. He said the water master plan helped guide city officials and there may have been some prioritization based on present conditions and what makes the most sense.

“However, it doesn’t take into account, necessarily, when streets were going to be repaved,” Gregory said.

Gregory said the thought was to coordinate road repair planning with underground water main repair to help minimize community disruption as much as possible.

“It’s disruptive when water main is put in – there’s no doubt about that,” Gregory said. “But having the street torn up – at least when it’s done, the water main’s done, the street’s done, and hopefully for 25 years those residents aren’t disrupted in the same way for that period of time.”

Immediate work to start in 2022 within the proposed plan, with city officials hoping engineering would begin sometime this year, would include the city replacing existing 4 inch diameter water main on Sabin Street, which has had four documented breaks with a repair completed in November 2020, will be replaced with an 8 inch water main. Existing water main on Exchange Street between Walnut and Sabin streets also would be replaced with larger mains during that time, along with existing mains on Illinois Route 64 between the Sycamore Public Library and Sabin Street.

“The main purpose is to improve water quality,” according to city documents.

Previously, Sycamore residents filed a class action lawsuit against the city in October on several counts, including fraud, deceptive business, negligence and public nuisance. The filing followed months of public outcry over concerns about water quality.

Project priorities for 2023, with engineering expected to begin 2022, would include Elm Street and DeKalb Avenue from Center Cross to Main Street, along with parts of South Street, Gregory said.

“Those streets are streets that are high on our street list, but we would like to get underground first and do them all together at the same time,” Gregory said.

Gregory said a large piece of project is Somonauk Street, which is split into two phases because of it being a larger scale part of the project.

“That should impact quite a few residents in a positive way,” Gregory said.

When all is said and done with getting related loans through the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Gregory said, the city anticipates still having $300,000 per year available for other water main type projects. He said that’s especially important to consider with the recent winter weather, since the city expects that weather to wreak havoc on some streets.

“While we hope that it doesn’t happen underground it’s possible,” Gregory said. “So it leaves a little bit of leeway … for staff time, engineering time and resources to be able to combat something if something does come up.”

The update comes after the Sycamore City Council approved a $6.90 water bill infrastructure fee for residents that went into effect Jan. 1. Gregory said the proposed water main replacement project would be funded with money from those fees, with the help of debt service to front the money to get started on projects sooner.

“That money is being put to work,” Gregory said. “ ... We’ll get it engineered and going from there as soon as possible.”