News Releases - 1999

Water Quality Compliance Reports Show Improvements

Springfield, Ill. -- Quarterly violations of federally-set limits for the farm pesticide atrazine in Illinois water supplies fell from 53 in 1997 to only one during calendar year 1998, newly released figures from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency show.

During the same period, violations of nitrate limits dropped from 19 to eight. Only two public water supplies were found to have levels of volatile organic chemicals that exceeded federally-determined maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). One of those supplies is no longer in service and the other has returned to compliance.

The figures are part of an annual report required under the 1996 amendments to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The Act says states like Illinois with primary enforcement authority for the federal regulations must issue yearly public reports of their progress toward providing every customer of a public water system with water that is consistently safe to drink, without adverse health effects.

"A plentiful supply of safe drinking water is something we in Illinois tend to take for granted," Illinois EPA Director Thomas Skinner said. "However, having safe, clean water flow from our taps requires day-to-day efforts by many people."

To meet the SDWA goal, Illinois has an objective of having more than 95 percent of its community water supply consumers receiving water that has neither short-term (acute) nor long-term (chronic) potential adverse health effects, by the year 2005. During 1998, more than 92 percent of the population was served by supplies which were in compliance with all health requirements.

In most cases where non-compliance occurred, duration was brief and the potential for health risk was minimized by prompt corrective action by the water supplies.

Supplies with microbial problems (either bacterial or turbidity non-compliance) are required to issue boil orders, and supplies that exceed maximum contaminant levels for nitrate are required to provide bottled water for infants under six months of age until the levels are consistently well below the MCL.

In Illinois, the Illinois EPA regulates operations of 1,807 community water supplies that serve 25 or more residents year round, ranging from small mobile home parks to major metropolitan areas. The Illinois Department of Public Health has jurisdiction over supplies that serve 25 or more of the same nonresidents at least 60 days out of each year (such as day care centers, schools and factories) as well as supplies serving 25 or more different nonresidents at least 60 days a year (facilities like campgrounds and highway rest areas.)

During 1998, 1,723 of the state's water supplies, serving 98 percent of the population, distributed water that was below the 15 parts per billion federal action level for lead. Lead contamination of drinking water usually is caused by plumbing in the users' home and monitoring is conducted by collecting samples from in-house taps. If more than 10 percent of a supply's high risk samples exceed the action level, the supply must implement treatment techniques or take other steps to prevent anticipated adverse health effects.

Standards for drinking water are determined by U.S. EPA after extensive research and are set with significant built-in safety factors to protect public health.

"Working together," Skinner added, "water plant operators, the farming and industrial communities and the regulators who enforce state and federal regulations can see that we and our families continue to enjoy safe and abundant drinking water into the next century."

Presently, community water supplies are required to monitor for a total of 85 parameters. Failure to monitor is itself a violation, and a large percentage of the violations during 1998 fell into this category. The latest figures show that 73 systems had 2,122 monitoring violations, while 129 of the total number of systems had 174 actual violations of the various standards, known as maximum contaminant levels or MCLs.

In monitoring required under the Total Coliform Rule, 159 systems had 208 violations, while 253 systems had a total of 442 violations of the monitoring requirement. Two systems had a total of four treatment technique violation under the Surface Water Treatment Rule that requires filtration and disinfection.

Copies of the summary or complete annual water system compliance reports, which must be filed by July 1 each year with U.S. EPA, can be obtained by contacting the Illinois EPA's Division of Public Water Supplies, #13, P.O. Box 19276, Springfield, IL 62794-9276.