Kane County is just 25 miles from Lake Michigan, one of the world’s largest sources of fresh water, yet it appears out of reach. As Kane develops new communities, or expands existing ones, county officials likely will need to look elsewhere for water.
Lake water consumers such as Kane County must bear the cost of infrastructure necessary to transport the water. That cost is greatest for towns farthest away. In addition, this state’s share of Lake Michigan water is capped by a U.S. Supreme Court decree and a subsequent pact with other Great Lakes states. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which manages allocations, plans to keep this state’s diversion at or under that cap. But while the state could shuffle allocations within that diversion, lake water probably won’t cover all projected additional demand in the suburbs.
“We just make the broad-brush assumption from the get go that it’s not going to be an option for us,” says Paul Schuch, Kane’s water resources director.
Kane County does have its own sources. Towns there tap regional aquifers. Elgin and Aurora, the county’s two largest towns, use the Fox River. But withdrawals from the Fox and other rivers are limited to maintain adequate flow. That puts the burden largely on groundwater to cover additional future demand. And with sprawl continuing to fuel development in Kane, as in other Chicago metropolitan areas, there’s concern that water supplies will prove inadequate.
By all appearances, there should be enough. Illinois is home to multiple shallow and deep aquifers located mostly in its northern and central regions. But planners don’t know the extent of supply because profiles of the state’s aquifers are not comprehensive. At the same time, groundwater withdrawals are virtually unregulated in Illinois. This has some observers predicting supply shortages that could lead to regional battles over what inevitably will become a precious commodity.
Not everyone, though, believes state regulation is a good idea. “The big problem we have is the state tries to paint everything with a broad brush, and this doesn’t fit every area,” says Dorland Smith, executive secretary of the Illinois Water Authority Association.
There are 16 such authorities in the state, mostly in central Illinois communities near the Mahomet aquifer. Under state law, a community can establish an authority by referendum. The authority then can regulate groundwater withdrawals in that area, restricting the ability of neighboring communities and other interests from drilling wells.
Smith says this local regulation of groundwater is more efficient than state-centralized regulation would be. “When a farmer decides that he wants to put in an irrigation system, if he had to go to the state and get a permit to put in the well, this could take months or longer,” he says. “This is just not acceptable in our area where we know [supply] is not a problem.”
The statute that provides for the authorities exempts withdrawals for agricultural and domestic purposes from authority regulation. In other words, a farmer who uses groundwater to irrigate crops, or a family with a private well, can pump at will.
State officials view these bodies with suspicion. Gary Clark, acting water resources director at the natural resources department, says water authorities materialize when central Illinois towns such as Danville consider expanding their groundwater withdrawal capability. “They pop up thinking they can fully regulate anyone from the outside wanting to use groundwater, yet they don’t have to regulate themselves because most of the use is agricultural or domestic,” he says. “It’s not a good way to run a water resource, but that’s the law.”
Illinois is not the first state to struggle with regulation and distribution of water. Arid states in the West have dealt with this for years. For that matter, water management is an international problem; around the world, water is increasingly recognized as something to be carefully managed.
But as Illinois enters this debate, state officials and regional planners recognize this state doesn’t have a plan for managing water resources. Last December, a panel convened by former Gov. George Ryan warned: “Unless water quantity planning is conducted in a comprehensive, regional and visionary manner, water will not be managed effectively or efficiently, conflicts can be expected to escalate and water shortages can be expected to occur in some parts of the state soon, and in many parts of the state in the decades ahead.”
By all appearances, there should be enough. Illinois is home to multiple shallow and deep aquifers located mostly in its northern and central regions.
Questions over the adequacy of downstate water supply are percolating, but the immediate focus is on the collar counties. The Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, which covers the six-county Chicago metropolitan area, projects potential shortages by 2020 for 11 townships in that area: two in McHenry County, four in Kane, two in Cook, one in DuPage and two in Will.
So Kane is subsidizing a study of the deep bedrock aquifer that spans northeastern Illinois and shallow aquifers of interest to the county.
The Illinois State Water Survey and the Illinois State Geological Survey are conducting the five-year study, launched last year.
Scott Meyer, a hydrogeologist and lead investigator, says concern over groundwater availability and projected increasing water demand related to population growth motivated the study. “Assuming that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decree is maintained and that these agreements with other Great Lakes states are written in stone, we can’t expect any more water out of Lake Michigan for Illinois,” he says. “Kane County is aware of that and aware that it might be prudent for them to look at other ways of accommodating that demand.”
Separately, the water and geological surveys are collecting data on aquifers throughout the state to build a digital, comprehensive picture of groundwater. Derek Winstanley, chief of the water survey, says this study won’t probe as deeply as the Kane County study because survey resources are insufficient. “That would require new financial resources over about a 10-year period.”
Illinois law does provide for limited regulation of groundwater withdrawals. The Water Use Act, implemented in 1984, requires groundwater consumers to register wells expected to produce more than 100,000 gallons per day with local authorities. The locals, together with the state water and geological surveys, are then required to review a well’s potential effect on other users of the same source. The state, under the law, has authority to restrict withdrawals in four counties: Iroquois, Kankakee, McLean and Tazewell.
The law also adopted the doctrine of reasonable use — defined in statute as “use of water to meet natural wants and a fair share for artificial wants” — for groundwater withdrawals. The new rule replaced the doctrine of absolute ownership, which gave landowners total discretion to take water below their lands regardless of any effect on adjoining landowners. The change unified the statutory approach to both surface and groundwater; surface water already was covered by the riparian doctrine of reasonable use.
Still, it’s unclear whether this statutory mechanism is sufficient to protect the groundwater supply over the long term. “There’s a very clear law on reasonable use,” Winstanley says. “The question is whether that is adequate to protect the aquifers and allow sustainable use of the resources.”
Moreover, he and other state officials say the legislature has not appropriated funds to enforce the Water Use Act.
Efforts over the past decade to increase the state’s role in managing water have failed in the face of substantial interest in keeping control of water management at the local level. And there are emerging efforts toward regional governance of groundwater.
The Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission is organizing a regional supply consortium of water managers from Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. The commission hopes to raise money for further analysis of tri-state water supplies, build a regional plan and educate policymakers.
In central Illinois, local governments, water companies, water authorities and other entities interested in the Mahomet Aquifer formed the Mahomet Aquifer Consortium in 1998 to promote further study and regional management of the source. “We feel that we are best suited to manage the water supply in this area,” says Smith of the water authority association.
But the extent to which Illinois groundwater is regulated in the future, and where control is based, depends, of course, on politics. “When all the interest groups come to the table to hammer out a compromise, we’ll just have to see where that lands,” says Clark of the natural resources department. “I don’t think we’ll see statewide regulation. It could be some form of regional-local control, but whether that means by county or district I just can’t predict.”
What’s clear is that concerns in Kane County are just the beginning.
Aaron Chambers can be reached at statehousebureau@aol.com.
Illinois Issues, July/August 2003
