Joliet prepares residents for water main project

Joliet is getting the word out to residents that there’s going to be a lot of construction this year, and it will continue until 2030.

The city has stepped up a water main replacement program needed to get ready for Lake Michigan water.

The City Council on Tuesday approved an $87 million bond issue that will be largely used to fund water main replacements.

The city will spend $36 million this year alone to replace 20 miles of water mains, Tony Anczer, deputy director of engineering for the Utilities Department, told the council before it voted.

Preconstruction letters were sent to residents and other property owners with addresses along the streets where the water mains will be replaced.

There were more than 2,400 such addresses.

“They went out in the mail today,” Anczer told the council Tuesday.

The city is inviting residents most directly affected by the construction to follow progress on the city website. Visits also will be made to the neighborhood as construction approaches.

“Just before construction starts, a door hanger will go out to remind them of the project,” Anczer said.

Water main replacements will mean water shutoffs at times.

The city also is talking with community organizations in the Cathedral Area, Forest Park, Cunningham neighborhood and downtown, the areas most directly affected by the water main work this year.

Water mains run under city streets, so main replacements will interrupt traffic.

Utilities Director Allison Swisher said the project will have some impact on “all of our residents whether they live there or are driving through it.”

On a bigger scale, the program will have an impact on the entire city because Joliet has to reduce the amount of water lost in the city system to 10%, a standard set for municipalities that use water from Lake Michigan.

Water loss is now at 32.6%, meaning more than a third of the water generated by the city is unused. That figure, also referred to as nonrevenue water, includes water used by the city, which does not pay for it.

Nonrevenue water previously was at 35%.

Joliet officials believe much of the water loss can be traced to aging mains that are being replaced through the program.

“The goal of the program is to replace any main built before 1970 by 2030,” Swisher said.

The year 2030 is the deadline for switching from the deep wells that now supply Joliet with water to Lake Michigan as the new city water source. The city has made 2030 a hard deadline based on forecasts that the aquifer that supplies city wells will not meet peak demand by the end of the decade.