Leak could prompt temporary shutdown of water supply to seven Northwest suburbs, but backups in place

A possible water line leak near O’Hare International Airport may require repairs, and could affect water service for seven Northwest suburbs for up to a week in February, officials said.

But it’s too early to say where the leak is coming from, how bad it is, and what kind of fix it might require. At worst, a section of the 90-inch pipe would have to be drained and repaired from the inside, temporarily shutting down the towns’ connection to Lake Michigan water.

But officials from the Northwest Suburban Municipal Joint Action Water agency - which pumps water to Mount Prospect, Rolling Meadows, Elk Grove Village, Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates, Hanover Park and Streamwood - say every town has interconnections with their neighbors’ water, and backup supplies of their own.

“If and when we find out that it is our leak, and if and when we start to dig, and if and when we shut it down, all the suburbs will be on backups,” said Ramesh Kanapareddy, the Elk Grove-based water agency’s executive director.

He said the leakage —amid ponding water discovered in December near the agency’s pumping station between O’Hare and Rosemont — is not a “crisis.”

“It’s something that we're investigating. We are not seeing any impacts on our side with the potential leak, but it is something that we have to investigate,” Kanapareddy said.

Some 45 million gallons of water a day (albeit less than 35 million gallons in the winter) are pumped from the city of Chicago to the seven Northwest suburban towns, which established the agency in the 1980s.

Officials are unsure if the leak is coming from a Chicago pipe, or the one belonging to the water agency. If it’s the latter, workers will look for its precise location - whether at a joint, on the pipe, or somewhere else, and that will dictate the extent of repairs and cost, Kanapareddy said.

Sometimes crews can fix a leak with the water running, and sometimes they can’t, he added.

They plan to dig next month once repair parts arrive, but it could be pushed into March depending on the weather.

Should a temporary shutdown be required, towns will turn the spigots on their backup supplies of water.

In Elk Grove Village, that means tapping into the Arlington Heights, Wood Dale and Schaumburg water systems. But if there’s a shortfall or a connection fails, the village still has a fully-operational well system, said Mayor Craig Johnson.

The old wells have a capacity of 7 million gallons; Elk Grove uses 4.5 million gallons a day in the winter.

“If we go to well water, you will notice a smell and a taste difference,” Johnson said. “The water is completely safe - 100% drinkable, usable, nothing to worry about. We tested it. We still test it. We test it all the time.”