DuPage extends water contract with Chicago but charges ahead on its own pipeline plans

The deal was set to expire next month. At $4.54 per 1,000 gallons, DuPage is on track to pay Chicago $122 million this year to pump water to residents.

Chicago’s biggest water customer, DuPage County, this week renewed its contract for the city to continue delivery to suburban faucets, toilets, hot tubs and factories.

The deal was set to expire next month, and will be renewed for just 17 years — less than half the length of the current agreement. At $4.54 per 1,000 gallons, DuPage is on track to pay Chicago $122 million this year to pump water to residents.

While they will continue negotiations with the city, DuPage officials said the abbreviated contract is a signal they are moving forward with efforts to build their own multibillion dollar pipeline from Lake Michigan.

“The shorter contract reflects our intention to explore all options for providing water services to our nearly 1 million residents in the most effective manner possible,” DuPage Water Commission Chair James Zay said in a news release. DuPage provides water to more than 30 suburban wholesale customers in cities and villages such as Naperville, Downers Grove, and Wheaton.

“We will continue to engage with the city of Chicago to explore ways to enhance our partnership in the interest of our residents, but we have a responsibility to consider all available alternatives,” Zay said. In recent months, DuPage has reached out to other suburban water commissions to split the potential cost and hired a lobbyist to pursue federal loans for the project.

The commission’s potential exit — while years away — could provide a significant dent in Chicago’s revenues and create extra competition for suburban customers as aquifers dry up and more communities look to tap into the lake.

The end of the renewed city contract is not the true deadline, Zay and DuPage general manager Paul May told the Tribune. In the next year or so, if city negotiations fall short, the commission would begin to take steps toward actually building the pipeline.

The goal would be to complete the project — which would potentially stretch from the Lake Michigan waters off of Glencoe — before their Chicago deal ends in 2041.

Early estimates to build a brand new water system pegged the cost at up to $7 billion when including decadeslong debt obligations and construction costs. It would also be complex because of the need to negotiate easements and land purchases to make way for infrastructure across multiple municipalities.

But partnerships should ease that complexity, May said. The Northwest Suburban Municipal Joint Action Water Agency “is engaged with us and moving forward” as a partner, “we have a route established and a willing partner to get to the lake… we’re now at the point where we’ve assembled a willing group that makes the finances work even better.”

Last year, the commission went public with its dissatisfaction with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s team after the city approved a new water deal with Joliet. DuPage officials argued that the Joliet contract was far more favorable than DuPage’s existing deal and pushed to have its rates calculated similarly using a model known as cost-of-service that both Chicago and DuPage officials say would cut down on that $4.54 rate.

The city previously characterized those negotiations as less-contentious, and said all of its customers would move to that cost-of-service model by 2030, when water is supposed to start flowing to Joliet. DuPage officials wanted a guaranteed rate in writing. Leaders there worry systemwide upgrades to Chicago’s water system in the coming years will only drive up their costs.

Joliet has a “commitment to the cost of service model embedded in their contract, and it’s tied to sort of a benchmark rate that was a 2019 number they were given,” May said. While Joliet has certainty about their rates, “anything that’s been presented to us in any contract contract negotiations so far is entirely ambiguous,” he said.

Since Mayor Brandon Johnson took office and DuPage officials confirmed they would extend the current contract, “negotiations have pretty much fallen off at this point,” Zay said.

Meanwhile, DuPage has also expressed “concerns over the maintenance and condition” of Chicago’s Lexington Pumping Station, the “lifeblood” station from which DuPage water flows, Zay said. DuPage splits costs with the city on repairs, but says Chicago has been slow to act on their concerns, including updates to emergency generator systems that would kick in to power the pumps in case of a major power outage or natural disaster, as well as upgrades to the station’s electrical controls.

Chicago officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

aquig@chicagotribune.com