After consistently winning the title for the best drinking water in the south suburbs, the village of Park Forest is celebrating a fourth place ranking across Illinois for its water’s taste, appearance and aroma.
Public Works Director Roderick Ysaguirre and chief water plant operator Wendy Schafer, who represented the village at Illinois Watercon in Peoria, said what makes Park Forest’s water special is its independent treatment plant as well as the water itself, which the village retrieves from underground wells.
“There’s a lot of communities in this area that you’re either getting water from Chicago, coming from the north, or coming from southwest sort of thing,” Ysaguirre said. “We treat our own water through our own process, and then we deliver our own water to our own customers.”
Chicago and the south and southwest suburbs that rely on it source water from Lake Michigan, Ysaguirre said, where Park Forest’s water is rich in minerals from the ground. The treatment facility was constructed in 2007, but the village has operated its own treatment plant since it was incorporated in 1949.
“From what I understand, it’s always been this way,” Ysaguirre said.
But high quality water comes at a high cost. Ysaguirre said per 1,000 gallons, Park Forest consumers pay $21.95, compared to $4.89 in Chicago.
The Park Forest water plant operates 24/7 and is staffed by seven employees. Routine tests are ran every few hours to check water quality through pH, chlorine, phosphate, fluoride, alkalinity, total hardness, calcium hardness, turbidity and the Langelier Saturation Index, which determines water balance.
“There’s a lot of costs that go into just maintaining that type of facility,” Ysaguirre said.
In February, Park Forest’s water was unanimously judged as the best tasting in the south suburbs by the South Suburban Water Works Association, allowing it to represent the region at the state level earlier this month. The village has received the honor for eight of the past 15 years.
At Watercon, a panel of judges scored water from the city of Paris, situated about 200 miles south of Chicago, as Illinois’ best. Those that followed, respectively, include North Park Water serving Roscoe and Machesney Park, the town of Normal and Park Forest.
Other water judged in the competition was from St. Charles, Northbrook and Collinsville.
Ysaguirre said he plans to work toward a statewide win for Park Forest while continuing to prioritize water safety above all else. He said rather than trying to match the treatment process used in other regions, the best course of action as water professionals is to apply whichever process works best for their individual water source.
“The bottom line, obviously, is that we definitely have to stay within lines of our regulations,” Ysaguirre said. “We have public health as our top priority as opposed to trying to win any taste contest.”
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
