Planning has begun for $4.2 million in improvements to the water distribution system that connects 11 southwest suburbs to Chicago’s water lines.
Orland Park last week approved an intergovernmental agreement under which it will pay $3,538 annually toward the project, Village Manager Rick Boehm said. He intends to meet with leaders of neighboring suburbs to plan future upgrades to a network of underground pipe connections that are up to 40 years old.
Construction of a larger main line between Chicago’s Durkin pumping plant, at 85th Street and Pulaski Road, and Oak Lawn’s pumping station, 93rd Street and Kilbourn Avenue, is expected to start in a year, Oak Lawn Village Manager Joe Faber said. A new 60-inch line will parallel an older 42-inch line that transports up to 50 million gallons of water daily to Oak Lawn, which distributes it to 10 suburbs.
The new line will allow Oak Lawn to receive up to 80 million gallons of water daily, he said. The older line is expected to be maintained as a backup system.
Improvement of the Chicago-Oak Lawn connection is the first phase of Oak Lawn’s plan to increase water capacity and serve two more towns, New Lenox and Mokena, Faber said. Oak Lawn, which got into the water distribution business in the 1960s, plans to enlarge other water lines within its system, he said.
“We could not have added (the two suburbs) without these improvements,” he said. “But at some point, we would have had to make the improvements because we reached the system’s capacity with or without Mokena and New Lenox.”
All of the towns linked to the line will share the costs of the $4.2 million project, but New Lenox and Mokena will pay the bulk of it, Faber said.
New Lenox, which will begin work next month on a pipeline to bring Lake Michigan water in from Tinley Park is paying $1.7 million for improvements that will benefit the system as a whole.
New Lenox’s switch from well water to higher quality lake water is expected to take place in early 2001.
Mokena will not tap into the lake water system unless its voters approve. The question will be put to them in a referendum scheduled for next November.
Mokena will not be obligated to help pay for overall system improvements unless residents vote to switch to lake water.