SOUTH BEND — Do you ever wonder where your water comes from?

Marguerite Taylor of South Bend has a Good Question: Does South Bend city water come from the St. Joseph River?

WSBT's Kirk Mason went straight to the source to find out.

The St. Joseph River runs straight through downtown South Bend. But that water does not run through South Bend faucets.

Deputy director of South Bend Water Works Dave Tungate showed us a model of where South Bend's drinking water comes from — wells that run as deep as 240 feet underground.

“This water here would be inherently more protected than the upper levels of the aquifer,” Tungate explained.

Water is moved to filters from one of 30 wells around the city. The filters can clean up to 10 million gallons of water per day if need be. Taking the water from underground instead of the river is both cheaper and cleaner.

“Surface water is a lot more expensive to treat, it's a lot more complicated,” explained Tungate. “The treatment process takes a lot longer, they need more chemicals, because the water quality changes so much when it rains, when it floods, when it freezes.”

In 2007 South Bend generated 6.9 billion gallons of drinking water, all taken from underground.