Yorkville losing 14% of its water supply through leaking pipes

YORKVILLE – After pumping water from wells, treating the supply and putting it into the distribution system, the city of Yorkville is losing 14% of that water through leaking pipes.

City Administrator Bart Olson said the city will need to reduce the loss rate to less than 10% in order to get a permit from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to tap into Lake Michigan for its supply.

That means the city must undertake expensive water main replacement projects, on top of the estimated $98 million it will cost to build the infrastructure needed to bring lake water to Yorkville.

The city appeared before IDNR officials on Oct. 21 as part of the lengthy permit process.

Olson told the Yorkville City Council on Oct. 25 that a leak detection survey will be needed to determine precisely where the distribution system is losing water.

Meanwhile, the city also has been meeting with representatives of the DuPage Water Commission, the agency through which Yorkville, Oswego and Montgomery plan to access water from Lake Michigan.

The three communities are working to establish an intergovernmental agreement among themselves for construction of a water pipeline from Naperville in DuPage County to Oswego, Montgomery and finally Yorkville.

After months of investigation and deliberation, all three municipalities decided late last year to connect with the DuPage system, rather than tapping into the Fox River or to use other sources to access Lake Michigan water.

The new water source is needed because the aquifer supplying the wells now used by the three communities is being depleted at a rapid pace.

The Illinois State Water Survey reports that without taking action, the three communities would be at “severe risk” of meeting water demand by 2050.

Olson said work on the pipeline project could begin in a couple of years and that the three municipalities could conceivably be getting water from the lake as early as 2027.

There is not only the pipeline itself, but construction of water storage tanks to comply with a city of Chicago requirement to have enough storage capacity for a two-day supply of water, in case of supply disruptions.

The pipeline will enter Yorkville at two locations. Ground storage tanks will be constructed near the existing water tower in the Grande Reserve subdivision, the other close to the tower in the Raintree Village neighborhood near Yorkville Middle School.

The city of Yorkville has already implemented what is expected to be only the first of several phased-in water rate increases to pay for the project.

By 2030, the typical Yorkville household may be expected to pay $100 per month for water, double the current rate.