Prenatal and child health care

Illinois has the seventh highest infant mortality rate in the country (15.1 per thousand) and is the only northern industrial state in the top ten in infant deaths. In an effort to reduce the mortality rate, the state Department of Public Health will award grants totaling nearly $9 million to local health departments during fiscal year 1982, the department announced September 8. More than half of the grant money is slated for programs to provide comprehensive prenatal care services, with the rest going to provide child health and perinatal (time of birth) services. Federal Title V Maternal and Child Health appropriations provided 60 percent of the grant money, with the remainder coming from the state General Revenue Fund.

The department also announced that it had awarded grants totaling almost $5 million to 67 local health departments to help support 10 basic programs, including food sanitation, solid waste disposal and communicable disease control. The size of most of the grants has been reduced from fiscal 1981.

Suit against Metro East Sanitary District

An environmental protection lawsuit has been filed by the Attorney General's Office against the Metro East Sanitary District (MESD), charging that the district allowed raw sewage to bypass its Cahokia plant and be discharged directly into the Mississippi in violation of permit requirements. The lawsuit, filed August 21 with the Illinois Pollution Control Board (PCB), claims that since 1979 the daily output of the plant (1½ to 2 million gallons) was on several occasions diverted directly into the Mississippi because of the district's failure to maintain in operating order two pumps necessary to deliver raw sewage to the plant. MESD's permit allows it to discharge limited amounts of raw sewage while permanent improvements are being made to the waste treatment plant, provided the plant is maintained in the best possible working condition during this time.

The suit also charged that the MESD failed to file monthly discharge monitoring reports with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and to notify the PCB each time it discharged raw sewage, contrary to PCB rules. The board has the authority to fine the district and require that repairs be made.

34 | November 1981 | Illinois Issues