Environmental Progress - Winter 1999

Enhanced Protection Asked For Peoria County Water Source

A needs assessment showed drinking water wells at risk of contamination

In the first action of its kind, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to establish expanded protection boundaries for three drinking water wells deemed to be at high risk of contamination.

At the request of the water district, the Illinois EPA has asked the state Pollution Control Board to designate as a regulated recharge area the 2,500 foot area surrounding the wells serving Peoria County's Pleasant Valley Public Water District. Such a designation would close the regulated recharge area to location of new potential sources of contamination such as municipal waste landfills, low level radioactive waste sites, Class V underground injection wells or special or hazardous waste landfills.

Establishment of regulated recharge areas is authorized under the state's Groundwater Protection Act (GPA) which became law in 1987. The GPA established automatic 200 or 400 foot setback zones around all wells serving public water supplies and gave water supplies the option of establishing maximum setback zones of up to 1,000 feet around wells as an additional safeguard.

In cases where an area's regional groundwater protection planning committee, after an extensive needs assessment of local geology, land use and existing businesses and industries, believes that even the maximum setback zone does not ensure adequate protection for the drinking water wells, the planning committee may begin the process of securing a regulated recharge area determination. The Illinois EPA is required by the GPA to request the designation once the request has been formally made. Provision is made throughout the process for extensive public input.

The Pleasant Valley PWD lies within the four-county priority groundwater protection planning region serving Mason, Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties. In 1988, the Pleasant Valley PWD was the first public water supply in the state to designate a maximum setback zone.

The district serves 1,296 service connections in an unincorporated area in Peoria county and sells water to an additional 300 services. Its sole source for the roughly 513,000 gallons of water pumped daily is in a sandy area overlain by sands, gravels and clay. Several industrial and commercial operations lie within its five year recharge area but outside the current 1,000 foot maximum setback zone.

Needs assessment showed potential for drinking water contamination exists

The needs assessment indicated that some of these operations had the potential to contaminate the district's drinking water supply.Once a regulated recharge area is in place, the Illinois EPA proposes to work with the Pleasant Valley PWD to:

• eliminate improperly abandoned water wells within the delineated area, since these can provide a route for contamination to enter public water supply wells;
• develop an educational program with the district and the local school system to inform the public about the economic and health threats posed by contaminated wells;
• require posting of signs developed by the Illinois EPA and the state Department of Transportation identifying regulated recharge area boundaries; and
• offer chemical substance management system training tailored to meet the needs of the small businesses that are located within the recharge area.

Part of the management training will stress pollution prevention alternatives and familiarize business owners with the Agency's Clean Break program, designed specifically to help operators of small businesses comply with environmental regulations.

The consequences of contaminated groundwater are many and costly

The GPA and the regulated recharge area designation recognize the significant negative impacts of groundwater contamination. The U.S. EPA estimates that the ratio of contamination costs to basic prevention costs may be as high as 200:1.

The U.S. EPA also estimates that nine types of contamination sources have resulted nationwide in water supply replacement costs in excess of $28 billion. In Illinois, two wells serving Rockford became contaminated by volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and were closed. The city in the following five years had to add five new wells at an approximate cost of $7.5 million, and several hundred contaminated private wells in the area were tied onto the municipal system at an additional cost of $4 million.

The city of Fox River Grove spent $500,000 to design and install a VOC stripping tower to treat two of its wells, and in Freeport, a similar project carried a $570,000 price tag.