Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the August 3rd, 530 pre-council meeting for the City of Joliet here in Council Chambers, the Honorable Mayor Terry Darcy presiding.

Okay.

We'll begin with roll call.

Mayor Darcy.

Here.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilman Clement.

Here.

Councilman Hug is absent.

He did let me know he would not be in attendance this evening.

Councilwoman of Barra.

Here.

Councilman Moreno.

Here.

Councilman Mudrin.

Councilman Quoman.

Here.

Councilwoman Verden.

Here.

And City Manager Beth Bay did let us know she would not be here this evening.

And first, we have a presentation for the alternative water source program update presented by Alison Swisher, Director of Public Utilities.

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council.

So it's been about a year since we've provided an update on the alternative water source program, and there's been a lot of activities happening over the last year.

So I'm just going to present an update on that.

Joe Johnson and Teresa Grady are here tonight, also, so we'll have some time at the end if there's any questions.

Right, so tonight, I'm just as we always start these projects.

I'm going to give the background of why we are completing this very important project.

Then I'm going to talk about the two different components of the program.

The first is the improvements being completed by the Grand Prairie Water Commission, of which Jolia is a member, and then I'm going to switch and talk about the improvements that Joliet is doing to receive the new Lake Michigan water source.

Lastly, I'm going to introduce the Stan Tech Amendment number five.

So that is the amendment that we plan every two years to authorize for the engineers to continue with the work on the program.

Okay, so we have all seen the slide many times, but we are in need of switching water sources because our current water source, which is the deep aquifer, is being depleted, and we had modeling done completed by the Illinois State Water Survey, which showed that we would not be able to meet our demands by 2030.

So with that information, we embarked on a multi-phase alternative water source evaluation, looking at all possible alternatives, and ended up selecting purchasing treated water from the city of Chicago as the most reliable and sustainable solution.

After that was selected, we did reach out to other communities in the area as this is not just a Joliet issue, but also an issue for many communities in the region.

The Grand Prairie Water Commission was formed, which consists of Shanahan, Crest Hill, Joliet, Munnucka, Romeoville, and Shorewood.

And so together those communities formed the Grand Prairie Water Commission, which will provide water to over 250,000 people.

Okay, so quick overview of the alternative water source program.

So this is a very large infrastructure project.

It covers four counties, 14 different communities, and many right-of-way agencies.

We're constructing pumping stations, water storage facilities, and over 60 miles of large diameter transmission main ranging from 66 inch diameter down to 20 inch diameter.

Our program budget is 1.446 billion dollars.

As again as I said, the project schedule is very important for this program.

We are now in the construction phase of the project, and over the next um really three and a half years, we're going to be constructing 26 construction work packages of various different um projects to complete the overall program so that we can have water uh provided to our communities by 2030.

I mentioned our uh budget before, I'm not gonna go into detail on this slide, but I think the high thing I want to highlight is that we have re-baselined this budget uh four times and in the process right now of budget 4.0, and we have not modified that budget.

So that is good news that over the past um four years of looking at this, we've not had to increase that budget.

Our funding strategy consists of federal um low interest loans and revenue bonds.

One thing that we have been um evaluating now is that there has not been availability of uh low interest loans from the state.

So we are um looking, and this is something that Kevin Singh and the finance directors are talking about is uh a new funding strategy given the lack of available funding from the state.

Oh, one thing I did want to go back really quick.

You know, we have you know, we have in our um funding strategy.

We've identified about 10 million dollars in grants that we've put in that strategy and to date, we've received 8.35 million.

So that is also good news that we are um meeting um and likely will exceed um the amounts that we've anticipated in grant funding.

So again, our our accomplishments, and I said there's been many, I won't read through everything on this slide, but we have awarded four contracts, and all of those have come in below the budgeted amount.

So that's some more good news to pass on.

We also, with our funding strategy, have been successfully closing on not only our federal low-interest loan WIFIO, which is 610 million, but also in the sale of revenue bonds.

So the financial market sees the commission as a very viable entity that is worthy of you know receiving this uh these these fund this funding.

So again, you know, people never really thought this project would happen, and we have evidence that it is happening.

Um, these construction projects are work that's been going on in Chicago at the site of where the Chicago water system tunnel is being extended.

And then this year, more locally, we've started with our first water delivery structures.

So these structures are being constructed right now.