
				Pat Quinn, Governor

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Environmental Progress - Spring 1997

Illinois Drinking Water Needs Estimated at $5 Billion Over 20 Years

A first-of-its-kind federal assessment of immediate and future needs to protect public drinking water supplies nationwide indicates Illinois will need to spend $5 billion, chiefly on transmission lines, distribution system upgrades and treatment plant improvements, in the next 20 years.

National need was identified as $138.4 billion. Illinois' requirements represent approximately 3.87 percent of the total U.S. needs.

The study, conducted over two years, categorized needs by large system (serving more than 50,000 people); medium supplies (3,301 to 50,000 users) and small systems serving fewer than 3,300 people.

The Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey looked at total needs, that is the capital needs faced by both publicly and privately-owned community water systems nationwide. Needs were categorized as current, for improvements needed now to protect public health, and future, for efforts that will be necessary between January 1995 and December 2014.

Not included in the survey were operation and maintenance expenses, projects associated solely with future growth, laboratory fees for routine monitoring, water rights, and the cost of future regulations such as radon and other radionuclides, arsenic, and sulfate. Also excluded were expenditures for water rights, land acquisition not needed for an infrastructure improvement planned by the water system, and projects not directly related to drinking water quality, for instance aesthetic improvements to facilities.

The survey was done in compliance with requirements of the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act reauthorization that required the U.S. EPA to assess the capital improvement needs of the nation's community drinking water systems.