The Aging Water and Sewer Piping Infrastructure of Rockford, Illinois

Rockford was founded in 1852 and currently has a population of about 150,000. Rockford faces dealing with aging infrastructure and the need to expand infrastructure.

In an article in the Rockford Register Star news, Ben Stanley wrote that Rockford has 800 miles of water pipes, which as they age, are likely to burst and leak. Cities across the United States leak about 15% of their water into the soil, but Rockford leaks about 20% of its water, Tim Holdeman, City of Rockford Water Superintendent says, “It’s money down the drain.” Leaking and bursting pipes cause more pipes to weaken and deteriorate.

Holdeman goes on to describe the immediate problem faced by Rockford with its aging infrastructure, “Water pipes will typically have a life expectancy of 80 to 120 years. We have about 120 miles (of pipes) that are older than 80 years old. So we ought to begin to replace those. But replacing the city’s aging system would be very expensive.” It costs between $2 million and $3 million to replace a mile of pipe.

If the city were to replace every one of its water pipes tomorrow, the bill would run between $1.6 billion and $2.4 billion. As it stands, the city can only afford to replace about 1 mile per year, which is the current average. At that rate, the city would not finish replacing its oldest pipes by the time its newest pipes also need to be replaced.

In 2011, in Rockford, four water main breaks occurred in one day, two of them on the same street. Public Works Director Tim Hanson said, “It is normal for the city’s older water mains to break almost on a daily basis as the ground shifts and goes through cycles of freezing and thawing between winter and spring.” The first of two sinkholes occurred on Cushman Road after a water main broke, covered the road in water, then a Rockford salt and plow truck fell into a sinkhole after the ground under the vehicle was weakened by the water main break.

These incidents show that the older parts of Rockford have vulnerabilities due to an aged sewer and water system. Because Rockford is over 150 years old, it is much more vulnerable to aging infrastructure. The Rockford map below shows how broad the scope of the problem is in the city core, with a big portion of piping being over 100 years old.

Pink and purple lines show pipes that were installed over a century ago. Also, there are 120 miles of pipe that were installed before WWII and are beyond their useful life of 70 years. If the pace of the replacement of these aging pipes were four miles per year, then it would take 30 years to replace the 120 miles of pipes that need to be replaced today. For the past decade, only about one mile of piping is being replaced each year. At the same time, it will be necessary to maintain 700 miles of piping that has been laid since then. The combined effect of factors described above may have an impact on short and long-term tax dollars needed and providing sufficient infrastructure to sustain growth and quality of life.

As an older city, Rockford faces the challenge of aging infrastructure piping coming to the end of its life expectancy, with more and more pipes bursting and leaking at greater frequency, and the cost of simply replacing one mile every year being daunting. It is a tremendous challenge.