Illinois Plan Focuses on Protecting State's Groundwater Resources

By RICHARD J. CARLSON, Director
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

The Illinois Groundwater Protection Act (PA 85-0863) approved by the Illinois General Assembly in the recent legislative session and signed into law by Gov. James R. Thompson in late September establishes a broad-based, statewide, protection-oriented program focusing on preventing degradation of the state's groundwater resources.

A comprehensive law which relies on state and local partnership, the Act recognizes the need to protect groundwater while establishing a unified protection program.

The Act

• sets a groundwater protection policy,

• enhances cooperation,

• establishes water well protection zones,

• provides for survey, mapping and assessments,

• establishes recharge area protection, and

• requires new groundwater quality standards.

The program authorizes certain actions by municipalities and counties to protect wellheads serving their residents, beginning Jan. 1, 1988. Communities will also have the option of assuming certain other regulatory measures on their own if they desire.

One of the most significant protection elements for community water supplies will be establishment of minimum setback zones of 200 or 400 feet between drinking water wells and potential sources and routes of contamination. In addition, maximum setback zones of up to 1,000 feet can be established to protect community water wells.

About four million people in Illinois rely on ground-water for their drinking water, served by nearly 3,000 wells providing water to roughly 74 percent of the state's community water systems.

In addition, another 7,300 wells serve such non-community supplies as schools, restaurants, parks, etc., and another 400,000 private wells provide groundwater for home consumption.

Though the majority of the water supply in the state was rated as "generally good" in an on-going IEPA sampling program for every public water supply in the state, enough instances of contamination have been found to support increased efforts to protect these vital resources.

For example, about six percent of the community wells tested by the IEPA to date have shown quantifiable levels of chemical contamination, generating a public health concern both in relation to carcinogens and a variety of long term health problems.

About 25 percent of the 15,600 water wells tested in 1986 by the Department of Public Health had bacterial contamination problems, and more than 12 percent of those wells exceeded drinking water standards for nitrates.

Nearly 18 percent of the 3,200 non-community water wells tested by the Department of Public Health had bacterial problems and about four percent showed nitrate contamination.

The need for prompt action to strengthen provisions for groundwater protection in the state is underscored by the comparative vulnerability of groundwaters to contamination, the excessive cost and difficulty involved in after-the-fact cleanup efforts, and the potential health problems associated with contaminated drinking waters.

The Act gives the IEPA responsibility for conducting a well site survey for each community groundwater supply, but local governments at their discretion may conduct groundwater protection needs assessments and evaluate their own potential hazards.

This provision properly gives those communities which choose to exercise it, an active partnership role in programs and activities designed to best safeguard the wells and aquifers which provide the community with this most essential natural resource.

For more information about the impact of this new legislation on your community water supply, contact Bob Clarke in the groundwater section of the IEPA Division of Public Water Supplies, at 217 /782-9470, or Joan Muraro in the IEPA's public information section at 217 /782-5562. •

Page 32 / Illinois Municipal Review / December 1987