Waukegan

Water Quality Snapshot: Waukegan

Waukegan is a local-owned community water system that delivers drinking water to 87,149 residents in Waukegan, Illinois (Lake County) through 21,499 service connections. Its water is drawn from surface water sources. EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System records 118 total violations for this system , of which 24 (20%) are health-based, meaning a contaminant exceeded an EPA Maximum Contaminant Level or a required treatment technique failed. A further 81 monitoring and reporting violations are on file. The most recent violation on record dates to 2025.

The most frequently cited contaminant at this system is Surface Water Treatment Rule, recorded in 64 violations (MR). This system was sampled under EPA's UCMR5 PFAS monitoring program and no PFAS compounds were detected above the minimum reporting level.

Across Illinois, EPA tracks 5,117 public water systems serving 12,576,876 people, with 355,322 cumulative violations and 52,932 health-based violations on record. About 81% of systems in the state carry at least one violation, and state-wide the average per system is 69.4 violations. Statewide, 199 of 487 UCMR5-tested systems have reported PFAS detections (40.9%).

Waukegan's 118 violations sit above the Illinois average.

All figures above are sourced directly from EPA SDWIS and UCMR5 public data releases and are updated as EPA publishes new reporting cycles.