Study to determine if Lake Zurich should link up to Lake Michigan water

Lake Zurich officials are looking to a $140,000 study for recommendations on whether the village should get its water from Lake Michigan and other issues.

The village's water is provided by six deep aquifer wells. Officials hope the survey, which should be concluded next year and is being conducted by Sugar Grove-based Engineering Enterprises Inc., will help them determine whether the wells remain a viable long-term solution.

"We've done small surveys over the years, but this one is far-reaching," Mayor Thomas Poynton said. "We've got a great system here. All of our water reports are good and we're not aware that there's an aquifer problem, but we're going to see."

The village was prompted to act in December 2019 when Lake County officials requested the village make plans to reduce and eventually eliminate the levels of radium in the village's waste water.

According to the Illinois Department of Health, radium is often found in groundwater in the northern third of the state, but it is more rarely found in the deep water wells like those used by Lake Zurich. Radium may pose a hazard to human health when the water is used for drinking or cooking.

In Lake Zurich's case, the radium the county identified is in waste water, not drinking water.

Village Manager Ray Keller said the village wasn't able to hire a consultant to study the problem sooner because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the enormity of the task. Keller said it took staff members a while to find a firm that could advise whether it was better to invest in new treatment processes or switch to Lake Michigan water, which doesn't require radium treatment.

In addition to the six deep aquifer wells, the village's current system includes five water treatment plants, two water towers and 113 miles of water main pipe.

Should the consultants recommend the village switch to Lake Michigan water, it would likely be expensive.

"You can't just flick a switch and then you've got Lake Michigan water," Poynton said. "There's a huge expense."

Wauconda, for example, completed a transition to Lake Michigan water last year, about 13 years after officials there began pursuing the idea. The project's price tag was reported at about $48 million.

One of the reasons Wauconda officials chose to act was their wells were expected to run dry by 2030.

Keller said the study is expected to be completed in October 2021.