Safe and Affordable Water Pledge

Guerrero for Joliet volunteers take action this weekend for water affordability and quality.

This World Water Day, Joliet finds itself on the precipice of a water crisis, and we’re not alone. Special Reporting by Michael Hawthorne at the Chicago Tribune shows that “brain damaging lead is found in most IL communities”. While communities across the state (and across the country) race to replace aging water infrastructures, Joliet’s problems run even deeper.

Reporting by the Tribune’s Morgan Greene shows how years of over-consumption and mismanagement of our water resources has left many wells across our city running dry. Making matters worse, naturally occurring radium (which is toxic) is found in many of the deep wells that are left.

These challenges are what explain our city council’s decision to build a $600 million pipeline to Chicago to pipe in fresh water from Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, the city council didn’t take into account our ability to pay for that water, passing along the cost of construction to residents, and increasing our water bills to an estimated average of $138/month.

All of that won’t begin to address the fact that Joliet loses 25% of its water to leaks, or the fact that much of our water infrastructure is a century old, and could be poisoning our children with lead in the service lines. Fixes to those systems could cost hundreds of millions of dollars more, and make water truly unaffordable to thousands of families across our city.

Without water there can be no life–there is no issue more pressing than this crisis on our doorstep. This issue is bigger than politics and needs the support of everyone across Joliet if we’re to address this challenge before it becomes a full-blown crisis.

That’s why we, the undersigned, fully support the proposal to immediately ban residential water shutoffs and implement a price cap on the cost of water to residences and small businesses. We call for the effective and equitable financing of Joliet’s water infrastructure projects through the implementation of a tiered pricing structure that will charge heavy industry at a higher rate than small businesses and working families. 

We also call on the Joliet city council to establish a task force to facilitate and prioritize local, state and federal partnerships to secure grant assistance and cost-sharing schemes to help finance major water infrastructure projects. 

This proposal has already received overwhelming public support with nearly 700 online signatures and 79% support (with less than 2% opposition) from nearly 500 residents polled at home.

Candidates in Support (as of 3/26):
-Cesar Guerrero

-Hudson Hollister

-Warren Dorris

**a copy of the pledge can be found here