DRINKING WATER, RECYCLE,
COOPERATIVE, ECONOMIZE

By Lake in the Hills Village President CHRISTINA THORNROSE and Village Trustee SCOTT BERG

The Village of Lake in the Hills has taken a unique opportunity to provide potable water for the community and environs while capitalizing on the changing Chicago Metropolitan Area water sources.

For reliability and quality purposes Lake in the Hills is augmenting its shallow sand and gravel aquifer wells with an ironton galesville deep well going down 1300 feet. This strata is where most all of the villages and towns east of Lake in the Hills got their water supply before shifting to Lake Michigan via the City of Chicago.

Lake in the Hills searched out, in cooperation with Layne Western of Aurora, Illinois, those pump, motor, controls and electric panels that were in good condition and left over from the source of water switch from ground to surface.

In an effort to provide a win, win situation Lake in the Hills offered to abandon the unused deep wells and clean up the sites in return for obtaining the pump, motor and other items.

This provided a savings to two villages in northern Illinois and ultimately four villages of $25,000 abandonment cost while obtaining a unit for the Lake in the Hills deep wells that would have cost upwards of $100,000.

This is obviously the best of all situations in being able to recycle this equipment at a cheap price for a use that's so vital for Lake in the Hills. We are still far away from an opportunity to obtain water from Lake Michigan though we continue to look at the Fox River for a surface source.

This win, win situation provides the ground water Lake in the Hills needs while providing the opportunity to recycle that results in significant savings for us all.

Page 10 / Illinois Municipal Review / October 1994