Winchester turned down for sewer grant
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By Carmen Ensinger
Scott County Times
Benton and Associates Engineer Greg Hillis delivered some bad news to the Winchester City Council Wednesday night, Jan. 4, at their regular city council meeting – the city’s grant application for the Unsewered Communities Construction Grant Program to put in sewers over by the Coultas property was rejected.
“That was the bad news,” Hillis said. “The good news is that we still have three more years to submit the application and hope we are selected during one of those other rounds.”
Over the five years of the grant program, the EPA expects to award $20 million annually. This amount is expected to be distributed to between four and 10 projects with a funding limit of $5 million per project.
This funding is generated through the Build Illinois Bond Fund and the Anti-Pollution Bond Fund and distributed through the State of Illinois. This year there were 24 applications asking for a total of $91.1 million in funding.
At the November council meeting, Hillis told the council that some of the changes made to the application actually benefitted the city and that there were only two items in the application in which the city didn’t meet the criteria for points.
“One of the criteria that you didn’t meet is that of a certain population in town and the other is that you are now a community in which your entire community is without sewer,” Hillis said. “Other than that, you scored 1,200 points out of a possible 1,600.”
The reason Winchester’s application was rejected was because they did not have the Tribal Council’s signoff.
“If you remember, when we did our first submittal, they required a phase 1 dig, which showed up nothing conclusive,” Hillis said. “When it came down to submitting this second application, we get down to the part of the application asking about the dig and we said we already submitted that with the first application. Now they are saying that the reason you were knocked out is because you didn’t submit it to the Tribal Council.”
Hillis did a little more digging (pardon the pun) and found out that it wasn’t a case of them not submitting the information to the Tribal Council – the information was submitted – it just wasn’t accepted.
“We found out that the Osage Nation doesn’t accept the work of Dr. McGowan, who is who you got to do the phase 1 dig,” Hillis said. “It is acceptable for the state of Illinois but not for the Osage Nation. So that is the reason you were not accepted.”
The Osage Nation has a list of people who they will accept, all of which live in Oklahoma. Dr. McGowan was chosen because he was local and the cost would have been far less than obtaining someone from another state.
An alderman asked Hillis how much it would cost the city if they were to obtain someone that was acceptable to the Osage Nation. Hillis said it could be upwards of $10,000.
“Our recommendation to you is since this is a five year grant program, you still have three more years to submit your grant application,” Hillis said. “We have 30 days to respond to their rejection letter and we have already prepared letters for you and will mail them out tomorrow. If there is any additional money that comes available, you never know.”
