Focus 580; Managing Water Resources In Illinois

Good morning and welcome to focus 580 This is our morning talk program. My name is David Inge. Glad to have you with us this morning. In this hour the show will be spending some time talking about water resources in the state of Illinois. And I think it's something that probably most of the time a lot of people don't think very much about compared with much of the western United States. For example the state of Illinois has enough water to meet our needs. Today however one thing we know is that the demand both for individuals for people who want clean available water when they turn on the tap and also for industry that demand continues to grow and there is some concern some people are concerned that if nothing changes some of the state's urban areas could in fact experience water shortages sometime in the future. This morning in this part of the show we'll be talking with Dr. Derek Wynn Stanly his chief of the Illinois State Water survey. And this is one of the issues that he is very interested in and his colleagues at the survey are interested in. He's been there in this position since January of 1990 seven. Before that he served as deputy chief scientist

in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and also as director of the National acid precipitation Assessment Program in Washington D.C. He grew up in England. He went to university there got his Ph.D. in climatology at Oxford and has worked in the U.K. also in the Middle East and Africa and Canada before coming to the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado. And he's good enough to come and spend some time with us just about a year ago he was here on the program talking about the same thing and we thought that it least once a year it would be good to touch on this subject and get people thinking about it and we asked him to come back and he was very nice and said yes he would. So as we talk questions are certainly welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that's good. Anywhere that you can hear us studies 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Well thanks very much for being here. Thank you I'm pleased to be here and returning back to you. As I said and I think it's true that you know we've we have had the luxury here at least in

this part of the country of not having to worry very much about water. Certainly other places in the West in particular they have and there's a much more pressure on people to conserve to think about where the water comes from and you know how it's used. And we really haven't had to do that yet. Do you think that there is some time in the near future however that even here say and in the central part of Illinois we will have to be more conscious of our water use. The answer to that is yes and it's also important to recognize that we are doing a lot in different parts of the state to conserve water. A good example of that is what's happening in Chicago. Mayor Daley has initiated a very active program to conserve water. For example he has repaired a lot of old water mains that were very leaky. He's initiated a metering process because a lot of the residents in the

Chicago area just had block payment for water they used they were not me to DM we're not paying for the amount of water they used. So things like this have been implemented in Chicago has actually reduced the amount of water it uses by about 160 million gallons per day. So they've been very aggressive in recognizing the need for water conservation. In Illinois generally we don't have water supply problems but periodically we do have major droughts. We know at the moment that much of the western part of the country is experiencing a major drought and a lot of those states are engaged in improved water supply planning and management. They recognize a lot of the plans didn't really accommodate them for dealing with these severe drought situations. And Illinois we haven't had a major drought for 15 or 16 years. 1989 was the last significant drought in the state. But we also know looking at the historical climate record that

more severe droughts than that have occurred in the past. And statistically we're about due for another major drought in Illinois when droughts to care as they well that typically means that water supply is diminished and also the demand for water increases as people want to water the lawns and irrigate the golf courses and so on. So we really need to be prepared for conditions during the next drought when it does occur. And one of the things we're doing on the water survey. Just to quantify what we mean by a worst case drought could it care for the state. So we're quantifying the precipitations shortages that could a cadger in West case droughts in different parts of the state and translating those into what it would mean for reduced water supply in key watersheds of reservoirs and also it would diminish some of the groundwater resources. And we hope that when this report is published that this will stimulate water resource managers

to take a look at each of their own individual systems and evaluate their capabilities for dealing with major drought before it occurs. What we don't want to get into is a situation like they have in the west where the struggling once a major drought occurs. The whole focus of water supply planning and management is to be prepared. So that's why there's a lot of attention being given in the state at the moment to being better prepared to improve our planning and management of our water resources. You know maybe you could talk a little bit about increasing demands on the existing supply here in the central part of the state. We're dependent on groundwater we draw our water from the Mahomet awkward for. And one of the issues I know that people in this part of the state and in the Citizens part of the state are concerned about is the fact that well if well today it seems that supply is certainly adequate that. Population has grown particularly in places like I'm sure champagne Urbana in Bloomington

normal and all those urban areas that draw from the opera for what are people thinking about in terms of future demand and how that's likely to play out. We're currently engaged in this study to project demand over the next few decades throughout the state. And that report is will be released soon. Well what we know in the central Illinois is that currently we withdraw about 30 million gallons of water per day from what we call the Mahomet aquifer from ground water from surface waters particularly reservoirs. We currently take about 80 million gallons of water out of the towns both directly on the aquifer and surrounding towns like Springfield Decatur or gun ville. Bloomington. And as these communities grow they're looking for new sources of water supply and a lot of them are looking at the possibility of withdrawing more

groundwater in the future. So we certainly see a lot of increased pressure on the groundwater resources in central Illinois and to try and provide a scientific basis for improved water planning and management. One of the things we're doing at the water survey is to develop a regional model for the whole aquifer so that when communities want to think about installing new high capacity wells we will have the ability to evaluate whether they there's sufficient water in the aquifer to sustain their needed withdrawals and also to determine possible impacts on existing wells of introducing new new wells. So this is a sort of tools that we're developing at the water survey that is needed if we are to use these resources wisely. This Currently there's a large capacity in much of the aquifers and the groundwater resources through the state. Certainly no overall shortage. The key is to make sure we plan and monies these resources wisely

before we hit any problems. So as far as the Muhamad aquifer is concerned we don't know precisely how much water is there. We have a good estimate of how much water is there a rough estimate. What we don't know is some of the details. For example if if if there's a proposal to build a new major high capacity well in say McLean it does well count as some of the studies that we have done show important connections between the groundwater aquifers and the surface water streams and rivers. So that connectivity is something that we have to study very closely. You can't simply just take as much ground water as you want without influencing the amount of water that's in the connected rivers and streams. So it's that connectivity and the need to maintain certain amounts of water in the rivers and streams that we have to plan for as well as asking ourselves Is this sufficient water in the aquifer itself.

So those those are the more detailed type studies that were wanting to conduct. Maybe I should just very quickly reintroduce our guest for anyone who might have tuned in last five minutes or so our guest is Dr. Derrick Wynn Stanley He is chief of the Illinois State Water survey which is based here in Champaign Urbana on the U of I campus. Questions are certainly welcome we're talking about water resources in the state of Illinois. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. We do have a caller. Why don't we go right ahead and bring them into the conversation. Someone in Champaign and line one below. Yes I was recently participating in a conversation about the hierarchy and I was told that the surface water the rain or whatever runoff cannot get into the fire and I have I wondered and now you're saying that there is some connection with the stream. But I guess the question was Can the aquifer be

replenished at all. Wouldn't you know it does if you know anything seeped into it from the ground. I guess not just replenished but also going to be contaminated. I think I will hang up and listen. Thanks for the show. Yes the aquifer is not truly a rechargeable entity. The water and the Mahomet aquifer which is several hundred feet below the surface is generally a several thousand to ten thousand years old. But it does get recharged slowly over time. The Aqua first for example what we call the glass for the aquifer closer to the surface gets recharged a little faster because it's closer to the surface. So it is a renewable resource. And surface water does get down over the long term to the aquifers. However the deeper the aquifer generally there's less risk of surface contaminants reaching it. So

the most susceptible aquifers are those closest to the surface. And we do know from those shallow aquifers that we do find some generally low levels of pesticides and other human products. We also as I mentioned know that the aquifers are connected in some places to the surface rivers and streams. So to the extent that those surface rivers and streams are polluted we need to be very cautious about their interaction with the aquifers. This is part of the scientific data we need to get a better handle on to determine exactly where the major recharge areas are so that we can protect the recharge areas. Making sure that the seepage continues to go through and recharge the aquifers and also to make sure that undue pollutants don't penetrate the aquifers. Just to make sure the people kind of understand what it is that we're talking about I guess is the way I think about it. You have to think about if you could. If you take us a

slice through the earth I'm sure you know people have the idea that there are different layers of things in there different kinds of rock'n and so forth. And that also within those layers there are structures that can act kind of like a sponge that will absorb and hold water. And that that's that water has eventually started on the surface it it it most that I guess would have been rain falls out of the ground eventually percolates down to this place where it can be held and then we can tap into it so all of the water that we are using now once fell on the ground as rain and rain and. It is rechargeable but we should always keep in mind that we are certainly capable of withdrawing it faster than it can recharge so while it is a renewable resource it's also what it's an exhaustible resource we certainly could use it up faster than it will refill.

That's correct and we often use the term safe yield or sustainable yield and that is the amount of water that can be safely withdrawn from the aquifers such that they would draw all rates don't exceed the rechargeable rates. That's a very important concept and not something that we need to quantify in more detail exactly how much water can safely be removed from these aquifers. Central Illinois the Muhammad aquifer essentially shallow aquifers they are composed of layers of sand and gravel that were brought down by the glacier has tens of thousands hundred thousand years ago. And as the old valleys filled with the glacial debris this created the sand and gravel aquifers that we exploit today. And between the sand and gravel layers there are layers of more impervious material separating the aquifers underlying these shallow

aquifers. It's right much of the state and what we call the deeper bedrock aquifers and the water in these aquifers is millions of years old even older than the water in the Mahomet aquifer and the recharge rates to those very very slow. One of the aquifers up in Northeast Illinois that we call the Northeast aquifer deep deep bedrock aquifer. It's currently being withdrawn at a rate that is perhaps probably exceeding the safe yield. It's interesting to look back over the past few decades on the history of that and looking to the future where we may be going back in the 1990s we started withdrawing water from the deep bedrock aquifer to very fast rate and by about nine hundred eighty. We would withdrawing almost 200 million gallons of water per day from that aquifer. Fortunately we were able to take a lot of the communities away from the deep bedrock aquifer supply and put them on water that diverted from Lake Michigan.

So we had an escape mechanism. And so withdrawals from the aquifer decreased dramatically to around the sustainable yield of about 65 million gallons per day. What we're seeing today in the past few years is an increase in withdrawals in that aquifer again. So from our current best data it looks like we're heading on the track for again exceeding the sustainable yield from that aquifer. But this time they'll be very little escape because the diversion of water from Lake Michigan Michigan is almost fully allocated. So whereas 20 years ago we could switch water resources and then in the future it's going to be more difficult. So that's why we need a good water supply management plan and get people to seriously engage in water supply planning and management in their own regions to ensure that we look at all the possibilities and making sure some of the aquifers are not unduly overdrawn.

Well it gets to a very important question. We were talking just before we got going about the fact that it initially we said well maybe we talk about water management and I think you want to make sure that people understood that the water surveyed was not involved in water management. You know it's a scientific study kind of a kind of outfit. When you look at say for example again the area that we are here all of us draw on the Mahomet aquifer on the surface. There are many different governmental jurisdictions. There are many different people who claim ownership and property rights to what's on the surface and that we're all drawing from the same source. So then the question becomes who who does it belong to who owns it. If anyone can say that they own it. And how do we go about this business of allocating that resource deciding who can draw from it how much they can draw. Who is in a position to make those kinds of decisions.

There is one very fundamental law that applies to who owns the resources and how much you can withdraw. That is what we call the right Parian doctrine all riparian law which essentially means that it's a common resource and that people can withdraw as much water from the aquifer as is reasonable. The difficulty is in determining what is reasonable. That is not strictly defined and in some cases where people have been adversely affected by for example drilling of new wells where their own water levels may have decreased. The taking the issue to court and its the courts to determine whether something is reasonable or not. That's a very different system than in out West where it's the law of first come first served that the early settlers in the 1800s were able to. Claim water resources as they claimed gold resources and other minerals

that they own the water resources and they can sell and barter those water resources in Illinois in much of the east we can't do that it's subject to this ripe area law. So the fundamental question is should we in the long term maintain the existing right Parian system or do we need to go to some perhaps modified right Parian system and some of the surrounding states in the Midwest for example require mandatory reporting of water with drolls. They require evaluation of the potential impacts of installing new high capacity Wells for example which we in Illinois don't do. So a question that will be debated fiercely and it has been over the past decades and it will be over the coming decades is whether or not the existing system serves as a whole in the long term best interest or whether we need to modify that. But that is full of social values and legal implications and certainly beyond the scope of the water survey.

We have another caller here also in Champaign. Let's go there line number one. Hello. Yeah hello. In the Midwest a lot of our farm fields are things or our child had to have. The fact I think of speeding draining water off the earth doesn't have an effect on recharge of the shallow you know wells or ground water supplies. I'll just hang up and listen. OK thanks. I have not seen a detailed study that tries to relate the existence of tile drainage to to recharge in the aquifers. It's a study that probably needs conducting but to the extent that the existence of tiles does divert some water from being percolated deeper into the ground against forcing it to be run off of the surface it could have some impact. Certainly we know that the existence of tiles can affect water quality. We

see much higher nitrate concentrations for example in some tiled areas than non tiled areas. When we're looking at water supply water availability we certainly need to look at all these components in a landscape. We need to look at the variability of precipitation precipitation and temperature over time. That is as it affects water of availability. We need to look at land cover changes. Typically we would expect. The areas that are covered by urban growth and concrete to also affect the water balance and we will probably expect tile grains to affect the water ballons. So we need to do more detailed studies of all these components before we fully understand the system. Another water survey was systematically trying to conduct studies to better understand all these components of the water cycle. All the questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free

800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 were talking about water resources in the state of Illinois. Our guest is Derek Wynn Stanly He is chief of the Illinois State Water survey. Just going back to the question of how it is that we're going to decide how the resource should be allocated. Has anyone suggesting that rather than for example if we have people who have competing interests to have a judge make that decision that there be some kind of body some kind of intergovernmental body where we try to have everybody's interests represented. We have political interests represented we have scientists who can weigh in on that sort of technical questions and have a kind of a commission or a board and have that group make decisions. And rather than going through perhaps resorting to the legal system not that that was necessarily going to yield a bad decision but maybe that's not the best way to to do that.

Yes there are different groups and proposals that would modify the right Parian system for example. This year we've seen a proposal put forward to the General Assembly that all new high capacity wells that is wells that would draw more than about 100000 gallons of water per day should be this subject to assessment and evaluation before before there are permits granted on the water survey. If that proposal were implemented would do the technical evaluations new wells and it would perhaps require a permit system which we don't have at the moment. However that bill has stalled and maybe may come up for consideration again next year. But there is great resistance or from some composite community against changing the existing riparian law and this whole concept of reasonable use. So it will be a long hard struggle for the system to be changed.

Next go here is in Peoria on our line for. Hello good morning. I have one quick comment and one question. Having grown up in California It strikes me that current usage of water in Illinois is profit. I'm sure that we all have habits of using water like there is no limit to its supply. And I'm curious if anybody is trying to encourage more responsible usage of water. And my question I'm interested in your reaction cup of Michael. Yes and also I'm curious what technology new technology has been developed to help you assess the size and location of those people water aquifers the deep ground water first. So I listen on the radio thank you. Okay thank you. Go. Yeah I mentioned at the start of the session that particularly in Chicago great strides have been made for increasing the conservation of water for example by

repairing old pipes that will leaky and implementing the water metering system. One of the key drivers towards increased conservation relates to the cost of providing water. And water the cost of water in Illinois is relatively modest compared with other states. For example a typical cost for water supply to the average household in Illinois is about 25 26 dollars a month at least in the champagne area. It's higher in some of the communities but in other parts of the country particularly out west and Texas for example those costs are three to four times higher than that. So once water costs increase it's there's a greater incentive to conserve water. At the moment water is a relatively inexpensive common good. And of course everybody would like the cost of water to remain low

just as we would like the cost of perhaps gasoline to remain low. But water is subject to economic forces and there's a tremendous amount of water available in the what we call the mind Simon aquifer several thousand feet below the whole state. That could be used if it could be treated economically. But this is where it comes to cost again the cost of water treatment. Given the current technology is fairly low cost of water is prohibitive. This tremendous amount of water in the Mississippi and Ohio rivers that could be withdrawn and used but again the cost of withdrawal and that case distribution will be prohibitively high. So this isn't it. This certainly an incentives that can be put in place for water conservation. I currently proposing that we hold a conference or a major workshop in the state to further discuss water conservation and reuse options. I certainly place it higher on the

agenda than it has been placed in the past and I hope we can generate some statewide discussion about these important issues. Part of the question was the identification of Water Resources and the deep aquifers. The way we get a handle on that is twofold. One we drill wells down into the deep bedrock aquifer and we can determine from pump tests the yield of water from those aquifers how much water is being pumped out and we can also determine from that the quality of the water from those water samples. And secondly when we have enough information from the field sites we construct regional groundwater flow models that reconstruct not only how much water there is in the aquifer but how it moves and also what allow us to determine the impact of. Drilling new wells so increasingly the reliance on more

sophisticated water models to allow us to have a broader regional view of the water available in these different aquifers. Just going back for a second to the question of the relative cost of water if you compare what we pay and what people pay in the West I'm just curious about what it is that accounts for the difference. Is it is it mostly distribution costs for the in the West. Ice probably due mainly to the difference in the laws that I've mentioned that here we have a ripe area law where it's a common resorts and anyone can tap into it no more than the cost of drilling a well and providing appropriate distribution systems. And I west where the the water supplies are owned by individuals. There's a higher market value for trading and selling of those water resources. And as we see the severe drought in the West at the moment week by week we see increasing discussion about the

Colorado River being fully utilized and running out of capacity. So once you get into a market system for allocating resources and tends to drive up the prices and of course the while the West is a more water scarce region typically rainfall is 10 to 30 inches in the West than here in Illinois the average rainfall is close to 40 inches so very different situations. We have some other callers in the next in line we have callers in Champagne County and line one below. Good morning Tim I understand that the local water company is actually internationally known has an international parent company and I wonder you know and I'm suspicious that our local resource is in the big screen a very big scheme of things greater purposes and that the use of the aquifer will.

The more generalized and become part of a distribution that that will increase increase the burden on the aquifer. Yes the water here in Champagne Illinois provided by Illinois American and I am certainly not going to start speaking on behalf of that private company. However I will say that the Illinois American does participate in the Mohammad talk with the Consortium for example where many representatives in the communities within the aquifer are getting together to plan for the wise long term management of the resources of central Illinois and the very active and interested participants in that consortium. It is a local resource and not only does the wells from the Illinois American works here in Champaign-Urbana serve the cities of champagne

and a banner across the they also serve surrounding towns such as to scold Sidney and so on. So it is somewhat of a regional water distribution system. In recent studies that we've conducted looking at what we call used to yield ratios in different parts of the state. Champagne Abana does appear to be an area that does as close a study to determine how much water can be safely withdrawn from this part of the aquifer. In the longer term those studies we hope will be conducted as I mentioned we are already preparing at the water survey a regional model that would allow us to take a detailed view of the whole aquifer and we have in fact also proposed to do a more detailed study. I run the champagne Abana area and we have submitted a proposal to

Illinois American conducting those studies. I understand that the mama Locklear for this part of the greater Iraq. The first system that may extend far is West Virginia. And how does drawdown and other parts of their tax system affect the moment for. Yes the Mohamed aquifer and the overlying shallow aquifers part of an old revolver system that started off in the summer and Kentucky floods flowed through neighboring states across Indiana and across central Illinois to discharge into what used to be the old Mississippi River that is now the course for the Illinois River. It's an old river valley that used to be occupied by the Ohio River and during previous glaciations the

movement of glacial material from the north pushed the higher river to its current position for the South and the glacial debris fill that hole. Old Ohio River Valley. So yes it is part of a larger regional system but the movement the lateral movement of water from east to west is slow. So I don't anticipate much problem from Illinois from people withdrawing from that aquifer and east in Indiana or the states to the east. However I do think that when we're conducting these regional studies in central Illinois we certainly need to incorporate say West and Indiana part of the aquifer as part of those studies. Next caller is in champagne and lying to a little. I've heard that one of the long term. I guess maybe the threat is too strong a word but something like that to

water supply from the home office or prefer locally is that farmers are beginning to install irrigation systems. And the pattern has been that one can fall short of it. Insurance against dry years they tend to get used every year and the long term this will be a big additional draw on the aquifer. Do you know anything about that. Yes the the use of water from the Muhamad aquifer for irrigation purposes currently exceeds by a fairly substantial among the water that is withdrawn for domestic industrial purposes. However we need to understand where and why that water is withdrawn and used. Nearly all water for irrigation occurs in Mason County and surrounding counties on the western part of the aquifer which are very very sound. This is the old I washed from the old Ohio River that I mentioned that discharged into the old Mississippi River. So

there's a tremendous amount of Sandy material which is very porous so the water there percolate down to the aquifer recharge it much faster than the eastern part of the aquifer. So because of that parole city the farmers need irrigation because the water doesn't hold as much moisture in the soil for the crops but also because of that Pearl City the water recharge is much faster. And in fact they the people that farmers that use that water in Mason County and surrounding counties have in place a system for measuring the amount of rainfall and the water levels in the wells. And we're comfortable that the current rate of withdrawal is well within sustainable yield for that particular part of the aquifer. It's very different from the rest of the aquifer and you can't generalize about irrigation for the whole aquifer based upon that particular small area.

The rest of the aquifer there's very little irrigation and I don't see why irrigation should increase to a large extent in the near future. Thank you. Terre Haute is the next caller this is lie number four. Good morning. Yeah this has been with a lot of course no longer an area that was recently wetlands but I put it in the last six years ago drainage ditches levees. Anyway in the last couple of years been about a dozen of these are your systems going. And I just wonder what the potential problems in the future. I'm not familiar with that particular area that you're describing any in India. Across from Darwin to Clark Yeah it's outside my particular area of expertise but I would suggest that certainly when

any major new withdrawal of water is put in place in this case irrigation that there should be studies conducted to determine whether or not it's going to have a substantial impact on the existing natural resources for wetlands for example and wetlands are interesting because some wetlands provide recharged the aquifers and others at certain times can actually take water from the aquifers. So it can be both sources and sinks for water and it's difficult to generalize about the impacts of changing water with drawls in surrounding areas he would need to conduct local studies to be able to make those reasonable conclusions. Sure if you're near enough to the river would you had a family underneath your. It would be safe to assume that you're probably

getting returns from the river. It's more likely that you would again without knowing the specifics I am hesitant to make a firm statement here but in general just as in the areas I've described in Mason County in west in Illinois this sandy gravel areas do have much faster recharge both from precipitation and if the closer to the river from the river itself. So there are probably good areas for taking large amounts of water for irrigation and other purposes. It's probably some of the safest sources of water supply. OK thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for the call. We are moving into our last 10 minutes here on focus in this first hour of the show talking about water resources in the state of Illinois and our guest is Dr. Derek when Stanley He is chief of the Illinois State Water survey. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. The numbers. Next caller up is in Belgium or by Danville. Why

number one. Hello. Good morning sir. Good morning. Have enough questions from the floor. I'm going but I'm going to start like this. There's in this area which is related to your. They opt for your starting with a mama for stretching towards Easter. There are many places where there were springs that were taken water back historically a place called mental Abia and all kinds of things. So water has been used commercially for other aspects for many years and the thing I am wondering about is. There's some large factories along the wall bash river and suck in enormous amounts of water from underground. For recycling the paper and different things like this. People don't really realize what kind of water usage they use which is close to a million dollar million gallons a day. Now to some of these wells the thing I was wondering about though is in other locations along the soc. People are pushing waste materials down close to rust to get rid of it

and it seems to me the two are going to come into conflict at some point. This is part of the overall problem we've been talking about before because of the right Parian law. People legally can extract as much water from the aquifers as they want without permits providing that nobody tries to claim it is reasonable use. That's just a fact of the system in the law the law that we have operating. Certainly it's possible that the substantial water withdrawals from aquifers that you could see springs drying up. Oh yes they have. Yeah that's not that's not surprising. However the only way to counter that at the moment will be if the people who own the water are have access to the water from those springs wish to take it to court and claim that the withdrawing water in substantial amounts is having unreasonable effect on the water supply that they would have to go through the courts.

But the other Roger question main question I really had for was the fact that I don't know that it's actually being done at this point in time but there was a large factory over here in the eastern part of town. It's part of Illinois that produced it. And essentially and in the by products they couldn't couldn't send a turkey to the local cemetery system and they couldn't get rid of them soft. So they drilled a deep 900 feet down and they pumped the by products down into it. Now that seems like it's asking for trouble. It does sound like he's asking for trouble. I would suggest that's more in the mandate of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in the water. We really don't get into those waste disposal issues alone. Very concerned about them but I would suggest that you contact the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to address that issue. That doesn't from the bailiwick of what your

expertise is it. That's that's correct. You know the part the final question is the Great Lakes you haven't mentioned the Koreans there's a great deal of controversy about how much water can be pulled from them to be shipped as another color called other places in the world. I really would like to have some fresh water. That's correct. We'll probably see more pressure for trying to have access to one of the greatest freshwater resources in the world. As pressure in other parts of the country increases. However currently there are negotiations going on between all the states that have frontage on to the Great Lakes and the Canadian provinces that do also to consider updating and modifying the protection and conservation of water in the Great Lakes precisely for these reasons that you mentioned. And we expect a report to come out this summer so we'll see what comes out of that but there is general recognition of the need to greatly protect and conserve the

water in the Great Lakes certainly for Illinois. We currently withdraw about 2 billion gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan but that is an amount that is kept by the Supremes court decree and the Supreme Court said that we should not go back to the Supreme Court and ask for. An ability to draw more water until we've exhausted all other potential sources of water including groundwater aquifers the water in rivers and streams and also have demonstrated that we are implementing water conservation and reuse strategies to the maximum extent possible. So there are a lot of people very concerned about the issue you raised and I think there's a lot of people also addressing the issue. Well thank you for your time. Well you know it's not just I'm I I'm assuming that commercial providers of water like the water company that we have here in Champaign Urbana they are regulated by the Illinois EPA. That is that right.

The the they are subject to the statewide regulations of the EPA and Commerce Commission and Illinois Department of Natural Resources and so on to the extent that their individual needs come under those agencies. They also have to comply with. Statewide water quality standards in the quality of the water that they deliver. So even though we know there are some natural contaminants for example in the Muhammad aquifer particularly arsenic in some parts of the aquifer and the arsenic standard is being tightened up. And the year 2006 all public water supply companies are required to meet those new standards and they would have to apply new technologies to meet those standards. The particular concern for us Nic is in the private wells where the regulations do not apply. We certainly know there are a lot of private wells and parts of the Mahamed aquifer that

where the concentration of arsenic greatly exceeds not only the existing standard but the tight a new standard that will be implemented in 2006. I guess that was I was assuming that if you're a water company that there are regulations that you're required to maintain certain quality levels and that you're also required periodically test so that you can demonstrate that indeed you're meeting those requirements. The is the water service interested in not in the direct way monitoring but interested in the overall question about what is the what is water quality look like in the state of Illinois and why. Are we meeting the standards that have been set. And do we how much do we worry or do we need to worry about the possibility that there would be toxic contaminants in getting into the water. Yes we are very concerned about that and we're doing a lot of studies in different parts of the state to document water quality both from natural pollutants and manmade pollutants and that we're also conducting studies

to help people who must manage the water supply is to understand the sources of the pollutant and what management practices could be put in place. Which part of the watershed. It's appropriate to put them in in order to either prevent or minimize some of these problems. We'll try to get one more caller Chicago one too. Hello. From most of my reading the experts tell us that this country on the planet there are overpopulated the United States has a population approaching 300 million. They claim that the experts claim that the smallest population of the country would be somewhere around one hundred twenty five million to one apart. Relation is somewhere around 6 to 6 1/2 billion. They claim that two and a half billion dollars. Right now it seems

the problem of water. You've been discussing and also other problems such as environmental and employment and so one Rob part is a proper problem of overpopulation and that's what you're what you're dealing with and people in the other fields are dealing with are basically Band-Aids. Can you talk to that subject. Yeah it's kind of a kind of a different issue but it's not unrelated. And the supply of water is of course basic to the supporting population and economic development and I think the heart of the matter goes down to economics. Certainly in this country we have about 280 million people at the moment and we know with a drought in the West that some of those communities are facing water water supply

problems and the price of water will increase. Ultimately this is there's a tremendous supply of water in the deep bedrock aquifers that I mentioned and in the Sea of course that water must be treated at considerable expense and distribute it to places that need it. So it's not it's difficult to provide an ounce of water an optimal population or economic growth might be it largely depends upon what people are prepared to pay for it. And the greater the demand the higher the cost and the more people must pay for it. But certainly we need to protect and preserve wisely manage the resources particularly here in Illinois so that we don't create problems of unavailable water resources water shortages and so on. There is no reason at all that anyone in this state should ever have a water shortage problem if they conduct water supply and money practices and the long term interest.

We will have to stop there because we are at the end of the time for people by the way who are interested in learning more about the Illinois State Water survey and reading about water issues they do have website there's a lot of information there. So you can if you have internet access just put Illinois State Water survey in your browser and that's the probably the easiest way to find it. And our guest this morning Dr. Derek when Stanley is chief of the Illinois state water search. Thank you very much. Thank you enjoy being with you again.