CWLP has responded to written questions from Chatham, but village officials said Tuesday the information contained nothing to make them reconsider pursuing their own water plant.
Chatham trustees could vote as early as this winter to abandon Springfield as the village water source and commit to building a water plant to be operated cooperatively with New Berlin.
“It’s time to sit down as a board and each one of us look through (Springfield’s two offers) and consider it and come back and make our decisions,” Chatham Trustee Chuck Herr, chair of the village public works committee, said during a committee meeting Tuesday night. “I think we’ve beaten this thing to death.”
Village manager Del McCord, Chatham’s representative on the South Sangamon Water Commission, said the commission will soon be in position to tell the village what water rate it will be able to guarantee.
“As the village manager, I’m saying we should wait until we get an offer to evaluate from the water commission,” McCord said. “As a member of the commission, I’m pushing that we need financially to get that number as quickly as we can.”
McCord said the water commission’s goal is to provide water at a cost of about $3.75 per 1,000 gallons to its customers. That could go down if other entities, such as Rochester, join the water commission, he said.
Final plans for a water treatment plant will be submitted to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in November. McCord said the exact cost of the plant, estimated at $20 million, won’t be known until the project goes to bid in the spring,
Engineers believe “they can come up with a better range sometime at the end of this year,” McCord said.
Chatham has invested about $2.5 million in the water plant so far, and officials had hoped an offer from Springfield would make up for some of those costs.
However, Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin appears to have ruled that out in a Sept. 4 letter to Chatham.
“The Chatham water source studies have been initiated solely by the Village of Chatham,” he wrote. “… The city of Springfield has no responsibilities for the cost incurred by the efforts by the village for an independent water supply.
“The city has reviewed the village’s financial study and made its own analysis of the potential costs of an independent water supply. That review seems to indicate that the city’s offer A will provide a lower cost option to the village than the costs associated with constructing and operating an independent water supply. The water supply costs to the village under Offer A would offset the costs of an independent water supply by more than $1.4 million per year. Offer A would also provide a rate lower than a simple continuation of the village’s existing water contract beyond its stated termination date of Dec. 31, 2013.”
Chatham disputes this assertion, citing estimates by investment firm Edward Jones, the Illinois Finance Authority, and its own consultants.
“None of those folks have a dog in the fight,” McCord said.
By AMANDA REAVY
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
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