Downers Grove wants more time to pay back water loan

Downers Grove is three months late with the first of 13 annual principal payments on a $4 million loan the village received from the DuPage Water Commission seven years ago.

Now, with the water agency finding itself fiscally challenged because of an accounting blunder that ate away its $69 million reserve fund, commissioners are anxious to be repaid. The loan paid for connections to the commission's Lake Michigan water distribution system for almost 800 residential properties in an unincorporated part of the county near Downers Grove. Those properties had well water that had been contaminated with toxic runoff from nearby industrial businesses.

Annual interest payments of $92,000 have been received regularly since the loan was issued in 2003, commission officials said. But the first principal payment of $369,000 was due in July and never arrived.

Village officials said they are the borrower in name only and that they are still waiting for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to assess blame on the dozen or so businesses in the Ellsworth Business Park that caused the contamination.

Downers Grove Mayor Ron Sandack is asking the commission for an extension on the loan payments. Though it's been seven years since the federal agency determined the manufacturing companies in the area were to blame for the contamination, Sandack is hopeful it won't take much longer to determine the ratio of culpability for each company there.

“Seven years ago, everyone thought by now the EPA would have this all straightened out,” Sandack said. “It's taking longer than anyone reasonably anticipated.”

EPA officials did not return calls seeking information about the progress of the investigation.

Sandack said the village acted responsibly in 2003 by being the conduit to unincorporated residents to receive uncontaminated water. Normally, the village would have required property owners to annex into the city to receive the water service.

“We were closest in proximity to our neighbors who needed water and we demonstrated our neighborliness,” he said. “We didn't force these properties to annex because it was a completely unforeseen circumstance.”

Village leaders are expected to appear at the commission's Nov. 11 meeting to discuss an extension on the loan repayment.