Water agency expects legal challenge next year
“The Northern Will County Water Agency is gearing up for an expected legal challenge early next year to its effort to seize control of a privately owned water pipeline.
The agency members — Bolingbrook, Homer Glen, Romeoville, Lemont and Woodridge — filed an eminent domain lawsuit in January against American Lake Water Company to take over the Bedford Park transmission line, which runs Lake Michigan water out to that portion of the county.
Agency attorney James Boan said at the agency’s quarterly meeting Monday that American Lake Water likely will file a motion to dismiss the case early next year on the grounds that the move does not fulfill a legitimate public purpose.
If that motion to dismiss is denied by the judge, the trial will likely begin at the end of 2014 or early 2015, agency attorney Daniel Formeller said Monday.
“It’s going to be a slow process,” Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar said Monday. “But that’s what you have when you have an unwilling seller.”
The agency initially tried to purchase the pipeline for $37.5 million in 2012 before initiating the eminent domain action earlier this year.”
Ziezulewicz, Geoff. Chicago Tribune 10 December 2013.