Attention Goose Lake residents

There will be an open meeting on Tuesday, January 10th at 7PM at the Goose Lake hall to discuss the proposed Coal City FPA expansion. There will be Coal City representatives at the meeting. There will be information and time for questions. This is a process that not many people are familiar with and I had to do a lot of research to understand it myself. Please research and talk with your neighbors before the meeting and spread the word so that we can insure we all understand what this means to us. All those affected by proposed FPA expansion are welcome. I copied the following from a report done a few years ago.

In Illinois, a facility planning area is the area where a community may offer centralized sewer service. Centralized sewer systems offer greater protection to water resources than septic systems do, and improvements in wastewater treatment represent one of the most significant environmental achievements of the past several decades. Because centralized sewers allow better treatment of more wastewater than septics, they enable communities to achieve larger scale or more dense development. If the systems are planned properly, they can provide an infrastructure framework for orderly growth. Poorly planned systems, however, can encourage diffuse development that consumes land and degrades water resources. The Clean Water Act established facility planning to examine issues key to centralized wastewater treatment. Those issues include how much treatment capacity is needed, what the financial and environmental costs of providing treatment will be, and what different treatment alternatives are available. Communities wishing to expand their sewer service to areas beyond those in the original facility plans must submit an application for enlarged FPA boundaries to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA).

IEPA is responsible for directly reviewing all FPA applications in Illinois that do not come from counties within area wide agency jurisdictions. The Agency’s geographic mandate is extensive, comprising 83 counties and a number of major metropolitan areas such as Rockford, Peoria, Springfield, Bloomington-Normal, and Champaign-Urbana. Nonetheless, IEPA has directly reviewed only 18% of the state’s FPA applications in recent years. IEPA retains a very important role, however. Because IEPA is the final reviewer of all FPA applications originating in the area wide agencies, it ultimately has a hand in 100% of the state’s FPA applications. IEPA, like NIPC, has developed an application packet for FPA amendments. Its application form is based on NIPC’s, and essentially requests the same information.

IEPA follows nine criteria when evaluating FPA applications:

1. The applicant must have standing to request an FPA amendment.

2. The applicant must have provided sufficient public notice.

3. The amendment must meet state water quality and effluent standards.

4. The amendment must not exceed the 20-year population projections by more than 5% (for communities over

10,000) or 10% (for smaller communities).

5. The amendment should not harm neighboring units of government or FPA entities.

6. The applicant must show that the amendment is the most cost-effective means of providing wastewater treatment

services.

7. The applicant must show that the amendment is the most environmentally sound means of providing wastewater

treatment services.

8. The amendment must be implementable, and the designated management agencies (e.g., a municipality or sewer

district) responsible for implementing the amendment must support it.

9. The applicant must demonstrate the need for the proposed amendment, supported by information on existing and

proposed land uses, the development proposal, and so on.

I hope to see a good turnout. This meeting will help us make an informed decision as to whether or not we support

the proposed expansion.

Thanks,

Brian Johnson

GLA President