Montgomery officials set workshop meeting to talk Lake Michigan water connection planning

The village of Montgomery’s plan to use Lake Michigan as its water supply by the end of this decade will be the topic of a special Village Board workshop meeting set for 8 a.m. this Saturday, Jan. 14 at Village Hall, 200 North River Street.

Over the past year, village officials and their consultants have been working with state agencies and officials in neighboring Oswego and Yorkville on a plan to obtain lake water through the DuPage Water Commission.

In unanimous ballot Dec. 13, 2021, the Village Board adopted a resolution identifying the DWC as the village’s preferred water supply option.

The board’s vote capped years of study by village staff and consultants on a new water source for the village to replace the water the village now pumps daily from the deep sandstone aquifer that lies under the village and most of the lower Fox Valley area.

The Illinois State Water Survey has determined that the water level in the aquifer is dropping and may not be able to meet local demand by 2050. That information prompted village officials along with their counterparts in Oswego and Yorkville, who also pump their water from the deep well aquifer, to begin joint and separate studies of potential new water sources for their respective communities.

After evaluating alternate water sources such as the Fox River, officials in the three municipalities all selected lake water and the DWC as their future water source.

However, the three municipalities are all facing considerable infrastructure costs to obtain the lake water which are expected to require significant increases in monthly water bills in the years ahead.

According to a study completed for the village in 2021, a typical monthly water bill for a village water customer living within municipal limits is about $48.80. That bill is expected to increase to approximately $97 to $106 per month when the village begins receiving lake water from the DWC by the end of the decade.