Proposed Aqua rate increase reignites tensions between the company and its customers

By ANDREW ADAMS
Capitol News Illinois
aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com

BOURBONNAIS – As state regulators consider whether to approve a proposed rate increase for the state’s second largest private water utility, its customers are criticizing it for poor service and high prices. 

Aqua Illinois, which serves parts of 14 counties mostly in northern Illinois, requested an increase to its rates in January. Under the proposal, customers would see about a $30 increase in monthly bills, according to Citizens Utility Board, a consumer watchdog group involved in the case. 

This comes at the same time as the state’s largest utility, Illinois American Water, is requesting a similar rate increase of its own – and facing its own criticisms. 

Citizens Utility Board Director of Communications Jim Chilsen delivers a public comment on behalf of his organization at an Illinois Commerce Commission hearing. CUB is intervening in Aqua’s rate case to argue for reductions to the company’s proposal. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

The Illinois Commerce Commission is expected to rule on both cases by the end of the year. Regulators at the ICC can accept, reject or modify the proposals based on evidence presented to them from the companies, ICC staff, advocacy groups and municipalities. 

Read more: In the suburbs, proposed water rates spark outrage from residents, advocates

Representatives of Aqua Illinois say the rate increase is necessary to maintain the infrastructure of its water systems, such as pump stations and water treatment plants, as well as to keep up with the cost of inflation. According to Aqua Illinois President David Carter, the cost of chemicals needed for making water safe to drink has more than doubled since the utility’s last rate case over six years ago. 

But many Aqua Illinois customers say the company has already failed to adequately maintain its systems and shouldn’t be granted the increase. 

Last year, Aqua Illinois entered into a consent order meant to resolve years of legal battles with the state’s attorney general stemming from dangerously high levels of lead in the water system for University Park, a far south suburb of Chicago. The heavy metal can lead to brain and kidney damage and is particularly dangerous for young children. 

University Park’s mayor, members of its board of trustees and residents registered their dissatisfaction with the utility at an ICC hearing Thursday in Bourbonnais. Black residents make up the majority of the working class village of about 7,200. 

“This is environmental racism and injustice,” University Park Village Manager Elizabeth Scott said during a public comment. “And ICC, I want you to know we have to have you do something. These people are monsters.” 

Others, like former village trustee Sonia Jenkins, criticized the rate increase request itself, particularly after many have spent several years buying bottled water to avoid relying on the tap.

“We have major concern with Aqua water company,” Jenkins said. “There is no trust. Our seniors cannot afford an increase like this.”

In the five years since the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency found lead in University Park’s water, Aqua has spent about $18 million on remediation, according to Carter, none of which is being recovered from ratepayers. The lead contamination came from erosion of older pipes. 

“We feel really confident that the erosion control treatment we have in place is working well,” he said in an interview last week, also noting that testing has found lead levels to be acceptable for three years. 

Residents of the village can also request lead level testing from the company at no cost. 

“We are committed to wanting to begin to build the trust,” Carter said Thursday. 

But University Park residents are not alone in their discontent over Aqua’s water quality. At a separate hearing Monday in the far northwest Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake, attendees complained of service interruptions and of discolored water. 

“It’s just unfair,” said Frank Pontrelli of Lakemoor. “We’re just getting browbeat here. Money’s getting taken and the water is still orange.”  

Water with high levels of iron, like that in Eastwood Manor, can appear discolored and stain clothing and faucets. (Photo provided by Stephanie Tesmer)

Water with high levels of iron, like that in Eastwood Manor, can appear discolored and stain clothing and faucets. (Photo provided by Stephanie Tesmer)

Stephanie Tesmer, a customer and longtime critic of Aqua Illinois, said in an interview that she and others in her McHenry County community are “angry” and “frustrated” with the company. 

“No one uses water from the tap,” she said. 

Water in Tesmer’s unincorporated neighborhood of Eastwood Manor is often discolored due to high levels of iron. In the company’s 2023 water quality report for that system, it found the iron concentration to be 2.3 parts per million. While it doesn’t apply to this specific water system, the general threshold for iron set by the Illinois EPA’s threshold of 1.0 parts per million for drinking water. 

This leaves people like Tesmer relying on personally owned filtration systems to remove iron in their water, which can be costly. 

Carter said despite the discoloration, the water meets state and federal safety regulations. Still, the company is expected to have a system-wide iron filtration system in place in Eastwood Manor by early next year. The company acquired Eastwood Manor’s water system, which had been plagued by water quality issues for decades, in 2016.

But Tesmer remains skeptical the utility will keep to its timeline. 

“I won’t believe anything until I see a proposal at the county level that they’re ready to do the work,” Tesmer said. 

Service interruptions and high costs were also common concerns among residents of Lake County who registered public comment. 

Aqua Illinois President David Carter listens to Dixie Payne give a public comment at an Illinois Commerce Commission public forum at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

University Park Village Manager Elizabeth Scott delivers a public comment at an Illinois Commerce Commission hearing in Bourbonnais. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

Last year, Hawthorn Woods and Kildeer experienced a multi-day service interruption, leaving hundreds of households without water. Parts of Lake County, including Hawthorn Woods, earlier this month were put under a boil advisory after a water main break. 

“In 31 years of living in Buffalo Grove, I only had one boil order,” Susan Bauer, who moved to Hawthorn Woods four years ago, said during a public comment. “Furthermore, my bills were nothing compared to what I’m paying now. My friends who still live in Buffalo Grove, they pay half of what I pay.” 

These situations have, according to Aqua, been resolved and all of its water systems are testing below regulatory limits for other hazardous materials. 

But every water utility – public and private – is facing aging infrastructure that will need to be replaced or upgraded in the coming years. The federal EPA in a 2023 report found that Illinois needs more than $22 billion in infrastructure spending over the next two decades, an increase of about 6 percent since its last assessment of infrastructure needs that was released in 2018. 

While some infrastructure improvements can be handled with government funding, for Aqua and other private companies, much of it will have to come from customers. 

“We are on kind of a collision course, truly, with rates and infrastructure,” Carter said Thursday. 

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.