Dixon council hears presentation for proposed water line work to repair, replace aging infrastructure

DIXON – The Dixon City Council discussed several planned improvements to water main lines within the city limits during a public hearing at its meeting Monday.

The project will either repair or replace existing water lines and be completed in three separate phases. The first, if approved, would begin in November and finish in August 2026. For customers, the improvements will not result in any additional rate increases to their monthly bill, Mike Long, water and wastewater engineer at Willett Hofmann & Associates, said Monday.

The work needs to be completed because “the existing water mains are aging and have a high history of water main breaks,” Long said.

The goal is to improve the system’s reliability, avoid interruptions for customers and continue to provide safe drinking water for residents, he said.

The planned work is actually a continuation of a project that began about five years ago, when the city obtained project planning approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The city has to renew that approval to complete the remaining work – known as phase four, five and six – which requires it to hold a public hearing, Matt Hansen, vice president at Willett Hofmann & Associates in Dixon, said at Monday’s meeting.

Phase four includes three projects. One to replace the water main on Woodlawn Avenue from South Lincoln Avenue to College Avenue will result in new service lines for 16 customers, Long said.

The second and third will be on East River Road from just east of Crawford Avenue to Route 2 and on North Galena Avenue from East McKenney Street to Bradshaw Street. Both those projects will make repairs to the existing lines, Long said.

Phase five would start in November 2026, finish in October 2027 and includes two replacement projects. The first is on Washington Avenue from McKinney Street to High Street, resulting in new lines for 40 customers, Long said.

The second is on Marclare Street from Dement Avenue to Washington Avenue, Jefferson Avenue from Marclare Street to the well six building near East McKinney Street, and on Dement Avenue from McKinney Street to Marclare Street. Those replacements will result in new lines for 81 customers, Long said.

Phase six is one project to replace the water line on Route 38 from Oakwood Cemetery to the Dixon airport. That project would start in November 2027 and finish in September 2028, Long said.

The work will not directly affect the cost to users. Any increases to customer rates will be based on the city’s current water rate structure, which was approved by the council in June 2022, Long said.

As for paying for the project itself, Long said the plan is to fund it through the Illinois EPA fiscal 2025 loan program, which is the same program the city used to fund earlier improvements to water lines.

Long estimated that phase four will cost about $2.25 million, phase five will cost about $3.79 million, and phase six will cost about $2.19 million. Through that program, each phase’s cost would have an interest rate of 1.4% over 20 years.

“Right now, the program has a 71% principal forgiveness,” he said.

Principal forgiveness means a portion of the loan is permanently removed, and the borrower is not obligated to repay that amount.

If the program were to stay at the 71% forgiveness rate, using the estimated cost for phase four as an example, more than $1.6 million would be covered by the program. Then, the city would pay $37,700 each year until it’s paid off.

In previous loans, the city has gotten through that program with the principal forgiveness at 50%, Hansen said.

“We’re assuming that they may roll that back to 50% principal forgiveness,” Hansen said. “Last year, they made a jump in the percentage up to 71%. I never really got a good reason why they did it. ... We hadn’t seen it that high in probably six or seven years.”

If that rate does go down to 50%, using phase four as an example, the annual payment will go up to $65,000.

At Monday’s hearing, there were no public comments made about the project.

For a period of 10 days after the hearing, until March 27, people still can share their thoughts in writing to public works Director Matt Heckman or to Chad Rice at the IEPA. Rice’s mailing address is P.O. Box 19276 in Springfield.

The city needs to receive that renewed approval from the EPA before it can move forward with the projects. The public hearing and any comments made will be presented to the EPA before a decision is made.