Agency Headquarters

Located on 27 acres in Lake Bluff, the Paul M. Neal Water Treatment Facility serves as the headquarters for CLCJAWA administration, operations, maintenance, and laboratory staff, as well as the water treatment processes.

CLCJAWA is the third largest Lake Michigan water treatment system in Illinois and the first new water treatment facility constructed along Lake Michigan in more than 40 years. The system was designed and constructed to include redundancy of equipment and facilities in order to ensure continued production of drinking water, even under emergency conditions like power outages. Since the original construction, several improvement projects have been completed, increasing system capacity and reliability along with enhancing water quality.

The treatment facility, arranged in four parallel 12.5-mgd processing trains, is entirely enclosed to allow for ease of operation and maintenance in all weather conditions. The facility originally included three processing trains for a total capacity of 37.5 mgd, but was expanded in 1999 to add a fourth train, increasing the treatment capacity to 50 mgd.