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Carrier Mills gets $500K grant to improve water infrastructure

CARRIER MILLS - The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has awarded Carrier Mills $500,000 in grant money to pay for a new water infrastructure project, according to a news release.

Carrier Mills is one of 28 communities from 23 Illinois counties to receive public infrastructure funding.

The funding, which is provided by the federal government and administered by DCEO through its Community Development Block Grant, totals $13.2 million. It is designed to help Illinois' low-income communities improve public infrastructure projects including water, sanitary system and sewer enhancements.

Carrier Mills' $500,000 grant is earmarked for construction of a water standpipe.

According to Carrier Mills Village Trustee Tracy Felty, the project takes care of two measures for the city. The first concern is the location of an existing underground water storage facility outside of town. Felty said because that supply is in a floodplain, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency wanted that water supply moved to higher ground. It also will give the village additional water storage, useful in case of an emergency, he said.

Felty said because the village already had been taking preliminary steps required in anticipation of undertaking the project, it may begin this spring and be finished in the summer. Even if there are delays, he said, the project likely will be finished before the end of 2019.

Other southern Illinois communities receiving grant funding for projects include Cairo, which received $460,000 for sewer treatment plant/sewer pump station improvements; West Frankfort, which will get $500,000 to build new PVC sanitary sewers; Broughton, which received $350,000 for a water main replacement; Hardin County, which received $500,000 for water main "and related appurtenances"; Mound City, which received $500,000 for sewer system improvements; and Alto Pass, which will get $500,000 to help build a new wastewater treatment plant. The CDBG program was established by the federal Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. Administered nationally by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, DCEO administers the state of Illinois CDBG Small Cities Program.

State-administered funds are only available to units of general local government. Municipalities must be 50,000 or less in population and must not be in an urban county that receives entitlement program funds, because there are 42 entitlement communities that receive their own allocation of CDBG funds, the news release said.