People who agree to have West Dundee replace their lead or galvanized pipe water-service lines will have to pay part of the cost because the village was denied a no-interest loan it was counting on.
The village board Monday voted 4-2 to charge residential water customers $5,000 of the approximately $13,000 it will cost to replace a line from the water main to the meter.
Work is supposed to start in September on the first phase of a three-year, more than $7 million plan to replace 430 service lines.
It’s a change from what the village told residents located in the first phase. The village initially planned to pay the entire bill and spread the cost to all utility customers. About 430 residences have lead or galvanized service lines out of roughly 2,900 utility customers.
The board decided a property-specific fee for all was fairer if it couldn’t offer the same deal to Phase 2 and 3 customers as it did during Phase 1.
Those who have their lines replaced will be charged $27 every other month for 30 years. It will be added to their water bills.
West Dundee will soon start work on the first phase of a three-year plan to replace 430 water service lines in the village.
Paul Valade/pvalade@dailyherald.com
Property owners can refuse to have their lines replaced. However, Public Works Director Eric Babcock said it is likely that in a few years the village will require lead and galvanized lines to be replaced.
At that point, holdouts may have to pick up the entire bill themselves, he said.
State law requires towns with fewer than 1,000 lead service lines to replace them by 2042.
Still, West Dundee will have to determine where to get the anticipated $4.5 million to pay upfront for its Phase 2 and 3 work.
The Phase 1 work is being partially funded through a $3 million no-interest loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. That loan is being paid back by all utility customers through a charge on their water bills.
The IEPA has a list of 43 projects that have plans approved for replacing lead service lines, but for which funding has been exhausted. The projects are estimated to cost $210.6 million. Besides West Dundee, other suburban projects on that list include St. Charles, Geneva, Elgin, Palatine, Downers Grove and Elmhurst.
West Dundee ranked 40th in priority, based on a scoring system that takes in to account a town’s median income, unemployment rate, poverty rate, residents who receive Supplemental Social Security Income, houses built before 1990, children under age 6, and its lead service line burden.
West Dundee scored an 80 out of 420 points. Last year, the lowest score that received an allocation had 70 points. This year, the lowest scores receiving allocations are 240 points for Blue Island, Stickney and Kincaid.
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