Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register
All but one of Springfield’s aldermen are sponsoring an ordinance endorsing Hunter Lake, but they got an earful Tuesday night from several opponents who questioned the necessity and cost.
Seven people spoke out at a committee of the whole meeting against the proposal to build a backup water supply to Lake Springfield, contending that building lakes “is a thing of the past,” that the city faces more pressing needs, and that the council should get more public input before taking a vote.
Wes King contended that “contrary” to what the ordinance, “it’s not totally clear we have an inadequate water supply.”
The ordinance backs the Hunter Lake proposal, which has been bandied about for decades, and calls for a partnership with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for the management and protection of the lake and its surroundings that would be just southeast of Lake Springfield.
Don Hanrahan, another who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, countered that the project hasn’t been approved because the scientific need for it hasn’t been demonstrated.
Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin is the only alderman who isn’t sponsoring the Hunter Lake ordinance.
Aldermen on Tuesday voted to put the measure on next week’s consent agenda, where a group of ordinances is often passed in bulk, with little to no discussion. McMenamin plans to bring the issue up for debate again at next Tuesday’s meeting in part because of the public interest, he said, referencing the seven speakers at the committee meeting.
McMenamin, too, took issue with the ordinance’s wording that the city has an “inadequate water supply.” “Once every hundred years, we may have an inadequate water supply,” McMenamin said.
The city has already spent millions of dollars to study the feasibility of Hunter Lake and purchase thousands of acres of land to build it. The cost of constructing Hunter Lake beyond what’s already been spent has been pegged at $108 million.
Clark Bullard, a retired University of Illinois-Urbana engineering professor who is from Springfield originally, pointed to a problem he sees as City Water, Light and Power relying “on the same set of consultants for 50 years, calling it an “echo chamber” effect.
“They have good people who believe they have a convincing case, but then when you take it out into the light of day and expose it to critical questions from regulators, agencies, from the public, the case falls apart,” said Bullard, who is also on the board of the National Wildlife Federation. “That’s happened several times over the years, and I’m afraid it’s going to happen again.”
Bullard pointed to larger cities in drier climates that have dealt with more substantial population gains and maintained steady water demand, arguing that the demand can be managed by changing the rate structure.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 