Some gaze west for water
BY PATRICK GARMOE
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Sunday, September 04, 2006
The standard
response to low-performing wells has long been to sink more wells.
Growth, however,
concentrates people and water demand, and more wells increasingly is not
the answer.
Experts say the
discussion needs to tilt toward piping water from unpopulated areas to
supply the needs of an ever-growing suburban population.
“As the area
develops, there will be more areas where you have to literally import
water into this area, for there to be sufficient water,” said Larry
Thomas, chief operating officer with Crystal Lake engineering firm
Baxter & Woodman. Though he's referring primarily to
McHenry County, experts in
neighboring counties have echoed similar sentiments.
Villages, townships
or even counties may have to team up in an effort to all draw water from
a part of the region that has more water than it's ever projected to
need.
It's the reverse of
the consortiums formed to make tapping into Lake Michigan possible.
“There's many
places around the country and in Illinois where the well field for a
community is not in the community. It's several miles away,” Thomas
says.
“They pull the
water from the ground and then they pipe it back to where they're using
it,” Thomas said. “That's one of the alternatives that this county is
going to have to consider if it's going to continue to develop.”
Going west is
physically possible. The initial grunt work is political, Thomas said.
“From the
engineering standpoint, yeah, I can get it done,” Thomas said. “Now find
me the money and get the permission to do it.”
Villages and
counties would need to coalesce on this issue, but some already are
skeptical.
“That's not really
a solution,” says John Kupar, a Campton
Township trustee and geologist.
He thinks the focus
ought to be better conservation efforts and management of what's
available.
While Thomas
projects the severe need won't hit for another decade or two, if
discussions don't begin soon, he says engineers won't have the time to
build the infrastructure necessary when that need does arise.
“Now is when you
should be starting,” Thomas said. “If we wait 10 years, it's unlikely
that we will have the resources in place in the time when we need them
because it just takes that much time to get it done,” Thomas said.
If that happens,
counties will be forced to take a Band-Aid approach to solving the
problem to avert a crisis and will pay a whole lot more.
“You're more likely
to end up with a lot more shortages of water in the future if you don't
get going on it now,” Thomas said.
Though each town
has to figure out its own path to water, the need is a regional one,
which is why some areas such as southeast
Wisconsin have formed government
boards to oversee water needs.
The report from
Thomas' firm outlined even creating a water resource manager to oversee
water availability in the area.
“This is a
full-time, 20-year job to pull this all together,” Thomas said.
This person could
also work toward helping create a water authority and countywide
groundwater protection conservation ordinances - which experts also
recommend in addition to more education about conservation.
Others are calling
for some sort of government oversight group.
“The main concern
we have is that as a region there's not a central planning management
authority or process to accommodate all the regional growth that's going
to come over the years,” said Allen Wehrmann, director of the Center for
Groundwater Science at the Illinois State Water Survey in Champaign.
Gary Clark,
director of the Office of Water Resources, a branch of the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources, also thinks some regional planning
organization is prudent.
“It's probably a
wise thing to do if it could get funded,” Clark said. Water is a
regional issue, and an organization needs to reflect that, he said.
Indeed, Illinois is
giving $1 million a year for the next five years to the new Illinois
Water Supply Initiative, which is an effort to create a framework for
government officials in villages and counties to work together on
solving the water shortage problems.
A group like that
could help make decisions on what type of growth ought to be allowed in
what areas, and what types of laws or zoning restrictions need to be
passed to meet those goals. |