Morgan County Emergency Management Coordinator Phil McCarty was recently given permission by the Jacksonville City Council to pursue a major grant to get up power for the city’s water system.
McCarty asked the council on pursue a multi-million dollar Hazard Mitigation Grant with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency to outfit the ranney well system at Naples with emergency power generation. The back up power would serve as a way for the wells to stay operational, pumping water into the City of Jacksonville in the event of having no electricity.
McCarty told the Jacksonville City Council at their June 24th meeting that its an intensive, lengthy process: “[This back up power] closes a loop. That means we can make [fresh] water out of raw water without any power by creating our own. That’s a big deal for our water system to be able to do that. It’s a four-year deal. There’s other portions of it – the county and some other departments, but matching money would be the city’s portion – basically 75% of $2.5 million is a lot that will be paid for with the grant. Twenty-five percent is still alot of money, too. We will have some time to figure out where we are going to find that money [in the budget], because it’s a four-year project…at least 4 years.”
McCarty says that the city’s 25% portion would mostly come in the form of up-front engineering and design costs, but reimbursement would come in the long term of the project. McCarty could not provide a timeline on when the city would hear whether or not they were a grant recipient from IEMA.
McCarty and city officials are hoping to avoid a repeat of June 2011 when the Town Brook flooded on the southeastern portion of the city, knocking out potable water for several days for the entire city.