The West Dundee Village Board has reversed course and will not be charging property owners who need to have their lead water service lines replaced.
At the urging of Trustee Tom Price, the board voted 4-1 last week to nullify its August plan under which the village had planned to charge residents and business owners $5,000 of the $13,000 price tag to switch out lead lines for new ones made of copper.
Under that plan, property owners would have been billed about $27 bimonthly for a period of 30 years to pay the $5,000 debt. Should a home be sold, the remainder of the bill would have stayed with the property.
Instead, the board has decided it will take other measures to cover the line replacement cost.
“There will always be infrastructural repairs that will be needed across the village,” Price said at the Sept. 9 meeting. “That happens all the time in specific parts of the community, and we haven’t charged that part of the community.”
He also noted there would be communication challenges in trying to get the information to affected property owners and that the cost of spreading out the expense across the village would have a smaller impact on family budgets.
“I came to the conclusion I felt better by spreading out the cost,” Price said.
Of the 2,900 homes in the West Dundee, there are 429 homes with lead or galvanized pipes. Most are in the south Old Town neighborhood.
Under state and federal mandates, the lead lines, which connect the city’s water main and bring water into individual properties, must be replaced because they have the potential to leach lead into drinking water if disrupted, posing possible health hazards to anyone who consumes it.
Illinois’ current Lead Service Line Replacement and Notification Act gives communities with less than 1,200 lead service lines 15 years to complete such projects, with work required to begin by 2027 and be completed by 2042.
Village Manager Joe Cavallaro said Monday that the cost to replace the lines at 429 homes is about $7.5 million. The village has received a $3 million no-interest loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to pay for the first phase of the work, which is set to begin soon, he said.
However, the village has been informed it does not meet the criteria to receive the same type of no-interest loan for phases two and three, which are set to be done in 2026 and 2027, Cavallaro said.
“Additional funding for the lead service line phase two and three projects will more than likely come from a variety of sources,” Cavallaro said.
That may involve delaying some planned capital improvements, he said. Among them would be postponing the painting of two village water towers.
They might also consider an increase in water tap-on fees for new developments, he said, or they could also hike utility bill fees with the money generated earmarked for capital improvement projects.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.