Joliet meets with Preston Heights residents over water woes

The demise of the former Southeast Joliet Sanitary District left nearly $100,000 in unpaid bills and an emergency transition to Joliet months before the city actually took over the system.

Those were a couple of the topics, which also included advice on how to flush toilets during a water outage, during a community meeting led by Joliet and Will County officials.

The meeting on Thursday was called after residents in the old sanitary district, particularly those from the Preston Heights area, came to City Council meetings in the past month calling on the city to act on the repeated water outages.

“Somebody needs to be accountable for something,” resident John Schoenekase told officials, noting that water bills are going up since the city took over the system and water main breaks are continuing.

“Honestly, the rates that the district was charging were not enough,” Joliet Utilities Director Allison Swisher said.

Water main pipes and other materials already have been brought to streets in the former district for a $3 million project that was scheduled before the complaints began to roll in.

“You’re being heard, and the conditions you’ve had historically are not acceptable,” Swisher told the gathering of about 50 people. “We have successfully done this in other neighborhoods, and I am confident we can do this in Preston Heights as well.”

What Joliet is doing is repairing and improving the water system that was collapsing under the sanitary district that provided water and sewer services to about 800 residents in the area, most of which are outside city limits, since about 1970.

It is the fourth such sanitary district that Joliet has taken over in the past 10 years.

“The system was in very poor condition,” Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino Tarrant told the gathering. “It had not been maintained properly for many years.”

Sanitary district officials came to the county looking for help, finding they were unable to fund the water system anymore, Bertino-Tarrant said.

The county is providing $15.7 million to the city for improvements in the system. The agreement is to provide the money over 10 years, a pace that Bertino-Tarrant said the county will try to speed up.

The sanitary district left behind about $98,000 in unpaid bills now in the hands of Will County, said Elaine Bottomley, deputy chief of staff for the county executive’s office.

“They had no money to operate,” Bottomley said.

The district did leave behind some property, including a residence used for its offices, that may be sold to pay off the bills, she said.

It also left behind a well that stopped working last year.

The district’s one well broke down in January 2025, said Nick Gornick, deputy director of plant operations for Joliet.

Joliet began providing water through an emergency connection as the district tried to repair the well, he said. By August 2025, the Southeast Joliet Sanitary District was getting all its water from Joliet, Gornick said.

The city took over the Southeast Joliet Sanitary District in February.

The major complaint from residents has been claims that water main breaks are happening with more frequency, leaving people without running water at times for 24 hours or more.

Joliet officials brought five-gallon containers that city Emergency Management Director John Lukancic said should hold enough water to get a household of three through a 24-hour outage.

City officials said the average water outage for the area since Joliet took over has been six to eight hours.

The city also provided bottled water, which will continue to be handed out to residents at the city garage at Chicago and Osgood streets from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday.

The city and Joliet Park District also worked out an arrangement to open up showers at the Nowell Park Recreation Center, which is where the meeting on Thursday was held, for residents in the old sanitary district to use during outages of 24 hours or more.