Chicago water, sewer & drainage 311 requests

Water, Sewer & Drainage 311 requests filed in Chicago since January 2021.

Current release

Data through April 30, 2026

Data from January 2021 through April 30, 2026

Source data: Open data ↗

File a 311 request in Chicago → This page shows historical data only.

Total Requests

294.5K

in the water, sewer & drainage category

Latest Month

8.6K

April 2026

Share of total

3.1%

of all Chicago 311 requests

Median Resolution

19.5h

half of requests close faster

Monthly water, sewer & drainage requests

How many water, sewer & drainage 311 requests Chicago residents file each month.

How this category is defined

What counts as water, sewer & drainage: Water main breaks and leaks, sewer backups, storm drain clogs, catch basin concerns, and flooding.

In Chicago’s raw 311 data, the following 7 service_type values are counted as water, sewer & drainage:

  • Check for Leak
  • No Water Complaint
  • Open Fire Hydrant Complaint
  • Sewer Cave-In Inspection Request
  • Sewer Cleaning Inspection Request
  • Water in Basement Complaint
  • Water On Street Complaint

To reproduce these counts against the raw feed

SELECT count(*)
FROM <chicago_311_raw>
WHERE service_type IN (
  'Check for Leak',
  'No Water Complaint',
  'Open Fire Hydrant Complaint',
  'Sewer Cave-In Inspection Request',
  'Sewer Cleaning Inspection Request',
  'Water in Basement Complaint',
  'Water On Street Complaint'
)

Analyst tip: Austin uses 'AW -' (Austin Water) and 'WPD -' (Watershed Protection Department) prefixes. Calgary uses 'WATS -' (Water and Sewer). NYC uses 'WATER LEAK' and 'Water System'. Baton Rouge has a broader 'ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES' that may include non-water items — cross-check against the raw feed if precision matters.

See how water, sewer & drainage is defined for every tracked city →

Source & provenance

Counts on this page are derived from Chicago’s official open 311 data feed, covering January 2021 through April 30, 2026. Category assignment uses an AI-generated mapping from the city’s raw service types to a normalized cross-city category. View the underlying dataset at data.cityofchicago.org.