Illinois EPA Announces $2.2 Million Loan to the City of Joliet

SPRINGFIELD - Illinois EPA Director John J. Kim today announced a $2,278,620 million loan to the City of Joliet (Will and Kendall counties). The low-interest loan is provided by Illinois EPA's State Revolving Fund, which provides funding for wastewater, stormwater and drinking water projects.

"This project provides for improvements to approximately 14,000 linear feet of the Joliet sewer system," said Director Kim. "This funding allows the City to make necessary improvements to maintain their infrastructure, while achieving cost savings through a low-interest loan."

The City of Joliet will use the loan funds to televise and clean approximately 14,000 linear feet of sewer pipe, ranging between 10-72 inches in diameter. For this project, approximately 12,000 linear feet of the sewer pipe is located within the bank wall on the west side of the Des Plaines River.

"Cleaning and televising this sewer is a critical component of our Long Term Control Plan to reduce Combined Sewer Overflows to the Des Plaines River. Low interest loans play an important part of our funding strategy to finance this approximately $82.5 million program," said Allison Swisher, Director of Public Utilities.

The City receives additional benefit from the State Revolving Fund as the subsidized loan results in additional savings over the life of the loan. The project is expected to be completed in July of 2020.

In FY2019, Illinois EPA's State Revolving Fund loan programs provided low interest loans totaling nearly $684 million. So far, more than $59 million has been forgiven by Illinois EPA to qualifying loan applicants.

To learn more about Illinois EPA's State Revolving Fund, visit https://www2.illinois.gov/epa/topics/grants-loans/state-revolving-fund/Pages/default.aspx.