Madison Village is getting closer to completing the transfer of its water and sewer utilities to Lake County. Village Council, during its Dec. 9 meeting, approved a purchase order to pay a wastewater treatment plant capacity charge to the Lake County Utilities Department. Madison Village will pay a capacity charge of about $3,044,092 to tie the community’s entire customer base into Lake County’s sanitary sewer system. The village’s capacity charge of $5.76 per gallon is based on its average daily flow of about 450,000 gallons of wastewater. Madison Village completed a major infrastructure project that involved constructing a new sanitary sewer trunk line and connecting it to a pipe leading to the Lake County wastewater treatment plant in Madison Township. The sanitary sewer interconnection will make it possible for the village to decommission its wastewater treatment plant. This project also was a key part of a larger plan for Madison Village to shift billing, operations and administration of sewer and water service in the community to the Lake County Utilities Department. That transition was approved in 2018 through an agreement involving the Lake County commissioners. Village Administrator Dwayne Bailey said he and village Law Director Joseph P. Szeman sat down on Dec. 3 with representatives of the county Utilities Department and “signed the final bill of sale for the water system and sewer system to Lake County.” With the completion of that agreement, all Madison Village water and sewer customers are now customers of the Lake County Utilities Department. However, Madison Village is still wrapping up one last billing cycle for the community’s water customers, Bailey said, during the Dec. 9 council meeting. As for the village wastewater treatment plant, the facility has been disconnected and is no longer discharging any effluent, Bailey said. The village eventually will hire a contractor to physically decommission the wastewater plant. The Environmental Protection Agency also will do an inspection and give the village authorization to terminate the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Permit that was required to operate the wastewater treatment plant, Bailey said.