Aqua Illinois customers slam water rate increase proposal

Northern Illinois residents spanning from Rochelle to Hawthorn Woods traveled to McHenry County College on Monday night to share their comments on private water and sewer utility Aqua Illinois’ request for a rate increase.

Aqua Illinois customers, advocacy groups and lawmakers appealed to encourage the Illinois Commerce Commission to ultimately turn down that request.

Company President David Carter, who spoke at the hearing Monday at the Crystal Lake community college, said this is Aqua’s first rate increase request in six-plus years. In that time, the company has completed $280 million in infrastructure improvements in Illinois, “and operating costs have risen,” Carter said.

Jim Chilsen, communications director for the Citizens Utility Board, cited a weeklong water outage in 2023 followed by a recent boil order in Hawthorn Woods, as well as previously reported lead in water tests, as reasons the Illinois Commerce Commission should turn down the request.

“While customers suffer high bills and poor service, Aqua laughs all the way to the bank,” Chilsen said.

Almost two dozen customers who spoke Monday night said they want to see the problems they have experienced, or continue to experience, fixed before the company is allowed to increase those rates. Customers said the proposal would add about $30 a month to their bills.

“Like any other utility, Aqua can raise rates and there is no guarantee. Like any other utility, Aqua can raise rates and there is no guarantee.”

—  Pam Althoff, McHenry County Board member

Stephanie Tesmer, an Eastwood Manor resident, has been in constant contact with the utility to complain about water quality since her family bought a home in the subdivision in 2021. The company said in August 2023 that it plans to add iron filtration at Eastwood Manor in 2025.

Other residents pointed out that they’ve lost water service for a week, been under boil orders or experienced poor-quality and useable water.

“My clothes are not white,” Eastwood Manor resident John Gacek said, adding that he often wears black because the water to his home will change the color of anything else.

“The only time we wash white clothes” is when Aqua adds bleach to the water system, he said.

Several residents of Lake County recounted the weeklong water line break in July 2023. One resident, Stella Senning of Kildeer, said that when the company started giving residents bottled water during that incident, they were allowed only 3 gallons a day.

“It took you all three days to start providing us water,” Senning said.

James Kenney of Rochelle said residents “can’t afford what you are doing” as other costs, including food and insurance, continue to rise. Neither, Kenney said, were residents informed of the public hearings. He said he learned of it “because I am on the township board,” adding that he asked other neighbors if they had heard about public hearings and was told no.

AARP Illinois requested the public forums, Chilsen said, and sent out a release, as did CUB.

McHenry County Board member Pam Althoff said she’s been following private utilities throughout her 40 years in local government.

“Like any other utility, Aqua can raise rates and there is no guarantee” that improvements will be made, she said, adding that residents do not receive value for the higher cost they pay.

To even consider the rate hike, Althoff said, Aqua should have to show “what improvements these people can expect and in what time frame.”

The company is doing things to improve water, Carter said, noting that all of its customers across the state pay into the same pool for infrastructure improvements. Although some funds might not be going into one system, it is going into another, Carter said.

“There are a lot of costs that go into managing a community,” he said.

A private utility, Aqua Illinois provides water and in some cases sewer services to 280,000 customers across 14 Illinois counties, including Boone, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kankakee, Lake, McHenry, Ogle, Will and Winnebago, according to the company’s website, aquawater.com.

In McHenry County, the company operates water systems in Crystal Lake, McHenry Shores, the Eastwood Manor subdivision near McHenry, in Nunda Township and in Lakemoor.

A second public forum was scheduled for Thursday in Olivet Nazarene University’s Wisner Auditorium, 1 University Ave. in Bourbonnais.

Customers can provide written comments to the Illinois Commerce Commission online at icc.illinois.gov/docket using case number 24-0044.