The 2025 decision
Joliet, Shorewood, Crest Hill, Romeoville, Channahon and Minooka formed a commission to pipe in lake water. Lockport was not part of it and, after reviewing an offer to connect through a private utility, the city stood by its wells in early 2025. The buy-in for a lake connection was put at roughly $150 million just to run the pipe. The city has spent $186 million since 2011 replacing water mains, improved several existing wells and dug a new, deeper one to feed the system. Residents quoted in the local coverage described putting in filters and softeners to make the water drinkable and appliance problems from the well water.
What deep well water carries here
The deep sandstone aquifer under this part of Will County produces very hard water and naturally occurring radium. The Illinois Department of Public Health has been writing about radium in northern Illinois groundwater for years, and utilities on deep wells have to treat for it to meet the federal limit. Treatment gets it under the limit on an annual average. It does not get it to zero, and the limit is a health-risk line, not a purity line.
On the EWG side, Lockport shows 13 contaminants above EWG health guidelines. Radium is on the list. So is PFHxS, one of the PFAS compounds. The water meets federal law. It is still worth putting your own barrier on the water you drink. More on radium in this part of Illinois.
Three problems, three parts
No single unit fixes hardness, taste and drinking water at once, and anyone who tells you one tank does all three is selling the tank. In a Lockport home we install:
- A salt-based softener at the main line for the hardness, sized to the number we confirm for your part of town. Every tap, the water heater and the appliances get soft water. Read how the softener works.
- A whole-home carbon tank for the disinfectant the city adds and for taste and odor. The media is matched to the disinfectant on your system and named in your quote. Read about whole-house carbon.
- An under-sink reverse osmosis unit for the water you drink and cook with. RO is one of the treatments the EPA lists for radium and one of the treatments that reduces PFAS. Read about reverse osmosis.
All three installed for $2,999. See what the price includes.
Lockport Township wells
A lot of Lockport-address homes sit outside the city water lines on private wells, especially toward Homer Glen and the unincorporated township. Nobody treats that water before it reaches you, so the radium question is answered only by a lab test. The Will County Health Department lab runs a hardness test for $18. Bring your results and we size the system to them. More on well water treatment in Will County.
Sources: Shaw Local / The Herald-News, February 21, 2025 (Lockport stands by its well system); EWG Tap Water Database (2013 to 2023 data); Illinois Department of Public Health radium fact sheets; EPA radium and PFAS treatment guidance; Will County Health Department laboratory price list.