News Releases - 1998

Enhanced Protection Being Sought For Pleasant Valley Water Source

Springfield, Ill. -- In the first action of its kind, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to expand protection boundaries for three drinking water wells serving Peoria County's Pleasant Valley Public Water District. At the request of the water district, the Illinois EPA has asked the state Pollution Control Board to designate the area surrounding the wells as a regulated recharge area. Such a designation would bar the 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 within the. regulated recharge area.

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 minimum setback zones around all wells serving public water supplies and gave water supplies the option of establishing maximum setback zones up to 1,000 feet around wells as an additional safeguard.

In cases where the regional groundwater protection planning committee which serves an area c concludes that even the maximum setback zone does not ensure adequate protection for the drinking water wells, the planning committee may request a regulated recharge area designation. Such a decision must be preceded an extensive needs assessment that evaluates local geology, land use, and existing businesses and industries. 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. The district has had a maximum setback zone since 1988, when it became the first public water supply in the state to designate such an expanded protection zone for its wells.

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 approximately 513,000 gallons of water pumped daily is a sandy area overlain by sands, gravels and clay. Several industrial and commercial operations are located within its five year recharge area but lie outside the current 1,000 foot maximum setback zone.

A needs assessment was completed late in 1992. The assessment indicated that some existing operations had the potential, in the event of a release or accidental spill, 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 direct conduit for contamination to enter public water supply wells; to develop an educational program in conjunction with the district and the local school system to inform the public about the economic and health threats posed by contaminated wells; to require posting of road signs developed by the Illinois EPA and the state Department of Transportation identifying the regulated recharge area boundaries; and to provide an opportunity for chemical substance management system training tailored to meet the needs of the small businesses that are located within the recharge area. Part of that training will stress pollution prevention alternatives and familiarize business owners with the Agency's Clean Break program that allows businesses to identify and in most cases correct unintentional violations of state environmental laws without the threat of formal enforcement action and possible penalties. The Clean Break program was designed specifically to help operators of small businesses comply with environmental regulations.

The GPA and the regulated recharge area designation recognize the significant negative impacts of groundwater contamination including devalued real estate, diminished property sales, tax base losses, increased operating and maintenance costs, consulting and legal fees, higher user costs for alternative water sources, and expensive remediation costs. The U.S. EPA estimates that the ratio of contamination costs to basic prevention costs may be as high as 200-to-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 were closed when they were contaminated by volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). The city spent an approximate $7.5 million over the next five years to add five new wells, and several hundred contaminated private wells in the area were tied onto the municipal system at an additional $4 million cost.

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