McHenry Shores residents under boil order after failure in water system

Residents in the McHenry Shores neighborhood of McHenry are under a boil order after a control system failure Thursday morning, according to a representative of its private water provider.

McHenry Shores residents used a community Facebook page to report the water outage on Thursday morning. Reports ranged from no water coming from their taps to a trickle.

“We noticed poor water pressure about 9 a.m. Asked a couple neighbors and they also were having problems,” Michele Rosa Lechner, a resident on Hilltop Lane, said in a Facebook message to a reporter.

The system “very unexpectedly had a control system failure causing low pressure/no water,” Aqua Illinois Inc. Illinois Director of Operations Andy Price said in a mid-morning Thursday email to the Northwest Herald. “We have made the repair, and the system is recharging as we speak.”

“If not already, water will be restored soon, but with a precautionary boil order,” Price said in the email.

According to a text message sent to customers Thursday after the outage advising of the boil order, “Customers may experience low pressure to a complete loss of service” from the failure.

The text also advised residents to use only boiled or bottled water for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes and preparing food “until further notice.”

“If not already, water will be restored soon, but with a precautionary boil order.”

—  Aqua Illinois Inc. Illinois Director of Operations Andy Price

It advised residents to bring water to a boil for five minutes and to let it cool before using. According to the message, the company would notify residents “as soon as it is no longer necessary to boil your water.”

McHenry Shores, once a separate village, was annexed into McHenry in the 1980s but remains on a private water system. It does have sewer service from the city, McHenry Director of Public Works Troy Strange said.

The city is working with Aqua to install an interconnect to the city water system, similar to one installed for the unincorporated Eastwood Manor subdivision, for emergency water supply, Strange said.

An Aqua Illinois spokeswoman said residents who did not get a text about the boil notice should sign up for the company’s alerts at: https://www.aquawater.com/watersmart-alerts.php