A water drinking warning that affected Aqua Illinois customers in University Park and other areas, including Kankakee and Peotone, has been lifted, the utility said Friday.

Residents were warned the previous weekend the drinking water had been contaminated due to high nitrate levels and shouldn’t be consumed by infants under 6 months.

Aqua Illinois said Friday, following consultation with the Illinois Environmental Protection Administration Agency and additional testing, that nitrate levels had fallen below the warning level.

The utility said it was also ending handing out bottled water in University Park and two other locations.

“River nitrate levels, and those at the monitoring location required by the Illinois EPA, are below the required level,” Aqua said in an emailed statement. “Internal monitoring data has corroborated that all other monitoring locations are also under the nitrate limit. The advisory for infants under 6 months old for all municipalities is no longer in effect.”

“We thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we worked to resolve this unprecedented incident,” Aqua said.

Aqua Illinois said customers served by its Kankakee River water treatment plant were warned about what it said were “unprecedented levels of nitrates” in the river water, which is treated for drinking water in Kankakee, Peotone and University Park.

The company said apart from the three municipalities, water systems serving portions of Crete, Green Garden and Monee townships are also affected by the nitrates.

While the nitrate levels were deemed unsafe for infants, some residents in University Park said they were swearing off the water because of possible health concerns.

A University Park official said that, as of Thursday, the village had not had any communication with Aqua and did not know a timeline for when the contamination issue might be resolved.A message seeking comment from the village regarding Aqua’s update was not immediately returned.

Aqua was distributing bottled water at its University Park water plant, 24650 S. Western Ave.

The utility earlier this week threatened to stop water distribution after the plant’s manager complained of “politicizing or grandstanding” at the plant site, according to University Park Village Manger Elizabeth Scott.

Scott said she was informed of the threatened stoppage by police Chief Dale Mitchell.

In an email Wednesday to Scott, which she shared, the chief wrote he was notified by a sergeant that the manager would shut the water distribution down if there was any more “politicizing or grandstanding” while cars are entering the site.

The chief’s email said police were told that handing out literature and speaking to each car entering the plant was disrupting traffic flow.

Scott said village staff have been at the Aqua plant to hand out information concerning the water issue.

The three pages, stapled together, include a letter from University Park Mayor Joseph Roudez III, a portion of the alert from Aqua and information about when water would be handed out at the Aqua plant, Scott said.

“We owe it to the public to communicate with them,” Scott said.

She said none of the information given to residents was political in nature.

Although the nitrate warning was for infants, some University Park residents were concerned about using the water when they went to the Aqua plant to pick up bottled water.

Scott said Thursday that residents are right to be concerned, especially those Aqua customers with compromised immune systems or older customers.

“People have a distrust,” she said.

Much of that stems from the fallout from a years-long “do not consume” order placed by Aqua in 2019. The order came months after the water provider introduced a blended phosphate mix into University Park’s public water system, triggering a chemical reaction that officials claimed stripped away a protective layer in residential plumbing.

This led to increased lead levels in the village’s water supply for roughly four years.

Aqua later declared the water was safe after testing had shown water provided to University Park customers had met all state and federal benchmarks for nearly three years.

mnolan@southtownstar.com