Consumer Rights Group: Bolingbrook Better Off With Public Water System

As Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar and the heads of four other neighboring communities decide what to do with their newly formed Northern Will County Joint Action Water Agency, a national consumer rights group has come out in support of locally-owned water systems.

According to analysis by the Food & Water Watch group, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that focuses on creating policies that ensure safe food and clean water, local communities are better served by publicly owned and operated water systems than by privately held systems.

The group uses recent struggles with Illinois American Water as one example.

From the release: 

Since Bolingbrook sold its drinking water system to Illinois American Water in 2002, residents have been slammed with rate hikes, adding $267 to $615 onto typical annual bills. Under public ownership, residents paid $246 a year for 72,000 gallons of well water, or $524 a year for water from Lake Michigan. In 2011, Illinois American Water charged households $922 a year for the same amount of water. Yet, Bolingbrook’s water prices were 228 percent higher than the average price of ten nearby publicly owned water systems supplying Lake Michigan water. 

“Under private ownership, people pay much more than their neighbors across the street who get their water from a public utility, even though that water comes from the same source— Lake Michigan,” State Rep. Renée Kosel, assistant Republican leader of the Illinois House of Representatives, said in the release. “One of the factors making it difficult for my constituents to sell their homes is high utility rates from Illinois American Water.”

Bolingbrook—along with Homer Glen, Lemont, Romeoville and Woodridge—are in the process of looking into take action against Illinois American Water and overtake the pipeline that carries Lake Michigan water from Bedford Park to the west suburbs via eminent domain.

In late-August, that allowed those five communities to create the Northern Will County Joint Action Water Agency. 

Claar says the agency could lower residents' water bill. Illinois American Water says Bolingbrook can't prove that and in the meantime, will be racking up lawyer bills while using eminent domain.

"History has shown using eminent domain to acquire a utility system is extremely expensive, risky and a divisive endeavor that will increase the costs to the public," said IAW President Karla Olson Teasley.

The Food & Water Watch group, according to its website, is funded fully through its members, donors and foundation grants. The organization mainly works to ensure the food, water and fish the public consumes is safe, accessible and sustainably produced.

What do you think? Should the village take over the water pipeline via eminent domain? Or are you OK with the Illinois American Water service you receive now?