Yorkville plans major water main replacement project to qualify for Lake Michigan connection

YORKVILLE – The city of Yorkville is accelerating its plans for replacing leaky water mains.

One of the conditions for obtaining a permit from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to tap into Lake Michigan is for the city to reduce its water loss rate.

Right now, after pumping water from wells, treating the supply and putting it into the distribution system, the city is losing 14% of that water through aging, leaking pipes, primarily in older neighborhoods.

In order to obtain the permit from IDNR the city must reduce its water loss-rate to less than 10%.

“The city will need to accelerate and add to its planned water main replacement program,” City Administrator Bart Olson said.

It is estimated that the city will need to spend up to $18 million over the next five years to get the water loss rate below the acceptable level, along with the roughly $98 million cost for building a pipeline and supporting facilities to bring lake water to Yorkville.

The Yorkville City Council on Jan. 24 approved a contract for $139,000 with Sugar Grove-based Engineering Enterprises Inc. to design water main replacement work on top of what was already planned to take place this year.

EEI President Brad Sanderson, who serves as the city’s engineering consultant, told aldermen at the previous council meeting that the water mains need to be replaced anyway and the Lake Michigan project is simply forcing the city to expedite the work.

Yorkville, Montgomery and Oswego are joining the DuPage Water Commission in order to connect with Lake Michigan.

After months of investigation and deliberation, all three municipalities decided late in 2021 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.

The city has already begun a series of phased-in water rate increases designed to help finance the major infrastructure project.

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

A year before Lake Michigan water begins flowing through the pipeline to Yorkville, the city will need to demonstrate that it has reduced loss from leaks in the system to less than 10%, Sanderson said.

Afterwards, the city will be required to perform an annual audit of the city’s distribution system.

The biggest part of the water main replacement project will involve pre-1970s pipes, primarily in the older neighborhoods of the central portion of the city.

Olson said plans are being investigated for financing the infrastructure costs, including state and federal loans or selling bonds.

Projections remain fluid, but it appears Yorkville residents could be drawing Lake Michigan water from their taps as early as 2027 or 2028.

The new pipeline will extend from Naperville to Yorkville, connecting up with Oswego and Montgomery on the way.

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 and close to the tower in the Raintree Village neighborhood near Yorkville Middle School.