Joliet details $92 million program to accept Lake Michigan supply; council to consider donated tank site

Allison Swisher, director of public utilities, and program staff presented a multi-year plan on Feb. 3 to connect Joliet to a Lake Michigan water supply and reconfigure the city’s distribution system.

The presentation said Joliet will shift from groundwater treated at 11 treatment locations fed by 26 wells to a system receiving water at four delivery points. To move and store that water, staff described roughly $92,000,000 in Joliet-only capital improvements split into work packages that include elevated tanks, ground tanks and standpipes, booster pump stations, transmission mains, rehabilitation of existing pump facilities, and demolition or repurposing of obsolete well sites.

City staff said the program’s first construction contracts to be advertised this spring will be two 1,000,000-gallon elevated storage tanks (work package 0802), with bidding scheduled for February 2025 and a council contract-award recommendation expected in May 2025. Initial booster pump and pressure-reduction work (0803) is slated to be advertised in October 2025 with council approval of a contract expected in February 2026. Other packages described construction phasing through 2029 and a project to remove or repurpose redundant wells after the Commission water supply is active.

Joe Johnson, a…