Cindy Mossuto, a Dixmoor resident of more than 20 years, said she could not flush toilets, shower or wash dishes while a water line was down for her home in Smith Mobile Home Park for about 15 hours in Dixmoor last weekend.
But she said this was no surprise. Water line breaks have happened so often in her area, she said she has come to expect them when she loses some water pressure.
She also keeps more than 200 water bottles stocked in her house, not only for when she loses water, but because she stopped trusting the water quality after several water line breaks in 2019, she said. She said these water bottles can get expensive.
The water line break Feb. 1 at 139th Street between Dixie Highway and Thornton Road affected nearly 1,000 residents, according to village spokesperson Travis Akin. He said some residents had no water pressure that day, and it took 15 hours to repair the break.
The following weekend, Feb. 7 and 8, two more water main breaks were discovered at 143rd Street and Page Avenue and at 143rd and Marshfield Avenue, leaving nearly 50 homes without water, Akin said. These breaks were fixed by 3 p.m. Sunday, and there was no boil water order, he said.
Four major water main breaks were discovered in Dixmoor in the past two weekends, with a break also discovered Jan. 29 near 146th Street and Seeley Avenue.
Dixmoor has experienced an ongoing pattern of water line breaks for years, an issue village officials first acknowledged in 2019 and have attributed to aging infrastructure.
Village President Fitzgerald Roberts said Tuesday it could cost between $50 million and $60 million to fix all the village water lines. He said even if new pipes are added, old pipes continue to collapse.
Roberts said the village is addressing these water system issues through a number of projects, and asked for continued collaboration from the residents.
“The system is pretty old, but we’ll stay on top of it and make sure that the residents get the water they need,” he said.
But Mossuto said Tuesday she and her neighbors struggle to communicate with village officials and often do not receive information about the breaks.
She said when they tried calling the phone number on the village website Feb. 1, it went to voicemail every time.
Mossuto said residents plan to attend upcoming village meetings to advocate for more accessible information on the breaks, including more information on the water quality.
Akin said Tuesday that while the village has come a long way in repairing water mains, part of the issue is that each break triggers another part of the system to malfunction and break, causing a domino effect.
He said this domino effect demonstrates aging, fragile local water infrastructure, a part of a longer-term issue, which other south suburban mayors have called an “invisible problem” in recent years.
He agreed the village still needs millions of dollars in funding to prevent continued outages, which he said affects both quality of life and health for residents.
“There’s also just the sheer aggravation of having low pressure,” Akin said. “I mean, we depend on water for everything, water for cooking, water for plumbing and water for everything else.”
Roberts said a recent project, completed in 2024 and primarily funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was a tremendous help to the system.
Under the project, an 8-inch water main was replaced with 4,400 feet of new 12-inch main from Seeley Avenue (south of 139th Street), running south under Interstate 57 and extending east to 143rd Street. Construction began in June 2023.
Roberts said the previous water lines were completely corroded and said there were 20 to 25 patches on each line before they were replaced.
The total project cost a bit more than $3 million, with about $2 million in federal funding and about $1 million from Cook County through its Build Up Cook program.
Akin said Tuesday a major water line break in October 2021 brought more attention to water line issues. The break left the village without running water and under boil orders for 10 days.
After the water break was addressed, Akin said the village launched a plan to identify and prioritize the large-scale improvements, then identify funding sources.
Akin said Dixmoor has received more than $18 million in county, state and federal funding for water infrastructure improvements since 2022.
Several of these projects have been funded by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, such as rehabilitation of a 500,000 gallon ground storage reservoir, expected to finish construction by spring 2026, and a new 750,000 gallon elevated storage tank.
The village’s water pump station was also rehabilitated and an emergency generator was installed under funding by the Cook County Build Up Cook Program.
The village also experienced several major water line breaks in 2022. Two water main breaks in July left all 3,500 residents of Dixmoor without water, and a boil order was issued for residents of the Modern Estates mobile home park, 14001 Western Ave.
At the end of August 2022, West Harvey-Dixmoor District 147 canceled classes for two days at Martin Luther King Elementary and Rosa Parks Middle School because of a water main break.
The water issues in Dixmoor are also a part of a larger issue of water debt in the Chicago south suburbs. The water leaks in these towns only enlarge the water bills, but infrastructure repair costs exceed the resources in the towns, many of which designated low-income.
Dixmoor, along with Hazel Crest, East Hazel Crest, Posen and Homewood, purchase water from Harvey, which purchases water from Chicago.
Chicago has sued Harvey, for nonpayment of water bills, several times.
Dixmoor officials blamed Harvey for water loss in 2021, but an investigation connected the water loss to a water main break.
awright@chicagotribune.com
