Government
What Marengo Pays for Water, and How It Compares
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
If you have looked at a Marengo water bill lately, you already know the number went up. In the spring the city rewrote how it charges for water and sewer for the first time in years, and the new rates took effect May 1.
So a fair question is the one every household eventually asks: is that a lot? Compared with the towns around us, is Marengo cheap, average, or expensive?
We pulled the current rate schedules for ten nearby towns, lined them up against Marengo's, and put every one on the same footing to do the math for a typical household. The short answer: Marengo now sits near the top. At about 5,000 gallons a month, a Marengo water and sewer bill runs close to $100, higher than most of its neighbors, though a few towns are pricier still.
Or, if you would rather skip the explainer and just check your own bill, jump straight to the calculator.
What Changed in the Spring
The new rates come out of a McMahon rate study the city completed in November 2025 and an ordinance the City Council passed in April. The city made three moves at once.
First, it raised the usage rates, the part of the bill tied to how much water you actually run. Water went from $3.58 to $5.55 per thousand gallons, and sewer from $4.90 to $6.65. A third piece, a charge that helps pay off the wastewater treatment plant, actually fell slightly, from $5.38 to $5.00. Together, the combined usage rate rose from $13.86 to $17.20 per thousand gallons.
Second, and this part got less attention, it cut the flat fees. The old debt-service charges on a quarterly bill dropped from about $52 to about $22.
Third, it added a new $20 per quarter fee dedicated to maintaining and replacing aging pipes, pumps, and equipment.
Put together, the reset shifted cost off the flat fee and onto usage. That is why the increase is smallest for the households that use the least and grows with consumption. At a light 3,000 gallons a month the reset raised the bill about 11 percent; at a typical 5,000 gallons, about 15 percent; and a heavy 8,000-gallon household saw closer to 18 percent. The more water you run, the more the new rates cost you.
City Administrator Derik Morefield told Marengo Weekly the adjustments were not driven by the new water filtration plant, which opened in June and was paid for with a state grant. Instead, the city says its water and sewer fund is required to pay for itself, that years of small inflation-based increases had left rates below what the system actually costs to run, and that the utility faces more than $16 million in identified repair and replacement needs with no dedicated way to fund them. Going forward, the ordinance calls for rates to be reviewed every year against actual costs rather than adjusted automatically.
How Marengo Stacks Up
Here is where a typical family lands across the area, estimated at 5,000 gallons a month, water and sewer combined, at each town's resident rate. We use 5,000 as a stand-in for a typical family rather than an official average; a smaller or more efficient household uses less and pays less, which is exactly what the calculator below is for. Because towns bill on different schedules, we converted everything to a monthly figure so the comparison is fair. On a Marengo bill, which comes quarterly, that monthly number is roughly one third of what you see.
| Town | Estimated monthly bill |
|---|---|
| Hebron | about $140 |
| Algonquin | about $107 |
| Harvard | about $105 |
| Marengo | about $100 |
| Hampshire | about $96 |
| Crystal Lake | about $81 |
| Genoa | about $72 |
| Huntley | about $71 |
| Woodstock | about $68 |
| Lake in the Hills | about $55 |
| Belvidere | about $46 |
Marengo is fourth of the eleven towns we checked, part of a tight cluster with Algonquin and Harvard where a few dollars separate one from the next, and well above the middle of the pack. Its combined usage rate, the $17.20 per thousand gallons, is the third highest on the list, behind Algonquin and Hebron. Because so much of a Marengo bill rides on usage rather than flat fees, a household that uses more than average moves up the list. Around 7,000 gallons a month, Marengo passes Harvard.
Check Your Own Bill
Rather than argue about what a "typical" household uses, we built a tool that lets you use your own number. Enter your usage and it shows two things: how the spring reset changed your Marengo bill, and what that same amount of water would cost in each neighboring town. You can view it as a quarterly figure, the way your bill actually reads, or switch it to monthly. Every town links to the official rate page we pulled it from.
Want every town side by side and the full line-by-line breakdown? Open the complete calculator.
Why the Towns Differ
The bigger differences are not about where the water comes from. These are mostly groundwater communities that pump from wells rather than buying Lake Michigan water, so the source is not what separates them. What separates them is system age, debt, and how hard each town is now working to pay for maintenance it once deferred.
Hebron is the clearest example. Its bill is the highest in the area by a wide margin, and there is a clear reason: the village took on a $4.9 million state loan to build a new sewer treatment plant, and residents are paying it back. Algonquin, the next highest, carries the area's steepest combined water and sewer rate along with a pair of flat infrastructure fees. Marengo's own high rank is partly the new capital fee and partly its steep usage rate, both aimed at a maintenance backlog the city says it can no longer put off.
Size alone does not explain it. Lake in the Hills, one of the larger villages on the list, lands near the bottom at about $55 a month, and Belvidere is lower still. The towns at the top are the ones spending most aggressively on their systems right now, and Marengo is one of them.
Marengo is also not doing anything unusual by charging a dedicated capital or infrastructure fee. Genoa, Huntley, Hampshire, Harvard, and Algonquin all add one too. What pushes Marengo toward the top is the combination of a high usage rate and those fees together.
What Comes Next
A few things about the new structure are worth watching. The debt-service portion of the bill is tied to bonds the city is paying down, and it is supposed to shrink as that debt retires. The city has also committed to reviewing rates every year, and says it hopes the new plant's efficiency will help keep those yearly reviews steady for residents. And the $20 capital fee is openly described as a start on a much larger repair list, which means it is likely to come up again.
For now, the takeaway is simple. Marengo's water is among the most expensive in the area, the spring reset put more of that cost on the households that use the most, and the calculator above will tell you where you personally land.
How to Read Your Water Bill
- You are billed quarterly. The total on your bill covers three months, so it looks large next to a monthly figure.
- Usage charges rise and fall with how much water you run, at $17.20 per thousand gallons for water and sewer combined.
- Fixed fees are the same every bill: debt-service charges plus the new $20 capital fee, about $42 a quarter.
- A rough monthly cost is your quarterly bill divided by three.