Romeoville joins Joliet water commission

The Romeoville Village Board approved plans Wednesday to join a new regional commission for Lake Michigan water.

Romeoville is the sixth member of the commission that the city of Joliet began to form more than a year ago with the goal of sharing the costs of the new water source. Channahon, Crest Hill, Shorewood and Minooka already have joined Joliet as part of the commission.

Village staff laid out the reasoning for recommending the regional water commission. They pointed to the shared costs for the charter members of construction, treatment and purchasing the water. Also, Romeoville’s location puts it at the beginning of the supply line for the water, which would minimize internal system improvements for the village.

“This is a very complex issue,” Village Manager Dawn Caldwell said during Wednesday’s meeting. “It’s not one we took lightly or made this recommendation quickly. There was a lot of analysis that went in this.”

The village said its combination of deep-water and shallow wells is predicted to serve Romeoville until at least 2040. Romeoville estimates its cost of switching to Lake Michigan water as part of the regional commission at about $95 million. Joliet has estimated the total cost of the project as high as $810 million, based on 2020 dollars.

Romeoville also said it anticipates the average resident using 6,000 gallons of water a month should only see a $6 to $10 rise in their monthly bill by 2030.

Mayor John Noak noted that even if the underground water supply the village uses was not projected to run out, it would be less expensive in the long run to switch to Lake Michigan water via the commission. In a presentation, the village said it expects contamination to rise in the aquifer and additional water treatment infrastructure would be “cost prohibitive.”

“It just keeps getting cheaper in the long term,” Noak said of switching water sources.

Romeoville is the second-largest water user in the commission, a key consideration in a group formed to create economies of scale to spread the cost of the project. The village said it would represent about 15% of the maximum day demand between the six charter members.

Besides the first six members, local officials have said the commission could add other municipalities in the future. Lemont still is in discussions this month on whether or not to join Joliet’s commission, but was not ready to make a decision by the February deadline.

When Joliet first agreed to a system to bring in Lake Michigan water by way of the city of Chicago, it was talking with 11 communities about the formation of a water commission to share the costs.

The village of Romeoville, with the help of the firm Strand Associates, evaluated nine alternative water sources through its process.

“We’ve all been, including myself, in many, many meetings,” Noak said. “I think I’ve seen my colleagues more times in the last few months on this issue than probably the last several years combined on other things.”

Romeoville looked at the Illinois and Kankakee rivers, which were deemed too great of a distance for the village to be the sole owner of delivery infrastructure. The Des Plaines River was considered, but the water was deemed to be of poor quality.

Romeoville also looked into purchasing water directly from the city of Chicago, but that was deemed not feasible because the city would not extend the necessary infrastructure to the village.

The village then determined that joining the new regional water commission was more economical and provided more cost-competitive options than the DuPage Water Commission or the Illinois American Water Company.