A Three Part Series on the State
of our Water
The Daily Herald
Part I: The oil of the
21st century
BY PATRICK GARMOE
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Sunday, September 03, 2006
Suburban sprawl
spurs traffic jams, but new roads eventually relieve bottlenecks.
New homes bring
more kids to crowd classrooms, but new schools ease the squeeze.
As bulldozers
continue to stretch the suburbs, however, another predicament grows,
unseen yet inevitable.
By the time today's
toddlers graduate from college, among their top concerns will be a
scarcity of a simple yet almost irreplaceable commodity.
Water.
People today often
take water for granted, whether swimming in a lake, filling a glass at
the faucet, or gazing at a small waterfall like this one at the entrance
to this Elgin neighborhood.
Water down below
Globally, the
United Nations says more than half the world will be living with water
shortages within 50 years.
Nationally, the
issue is so serious a congressional panel issued a 2003 report on
scarcity entitled, "Water: Is it the 'Oil' of the 21st Century?"
Locally, the
suburbs will not be immune.
Experts in
environment, planning and geology all say swaths of suburbs in Kane,
Lake and McHenry counties could face serious water shortages in the next 20
years.
The number of
people will rise, but the water available will remain the same - putting
a squeeze on supplies.
Outlying towns will
feel the brunt of the problem first. Unable to draw water from Lake
Michigan, they instead must tap into underground pools called aquifers.
Sand and gravel
make up some aquifers and lie no more than 100 feet below ground. Some
aquifers form in layers of bedrock, up to 1,200 feet down.
Nature alone
refills these aquifers. Rain falls and the ground absorbs the water,
which trickles down into sand or rock.
Towns sink wells
into these pools and pump the water up.
A century ago, when
the first wells poked area aquifers, no pump was needed. When first
tapped, aquifers would spew water 30 feet into the air.
"Now after a
century of use, that water level is 600 to 700 feet below land's
surface," says Allen Wehrmann, director of the center for groundwater
science at the Illinois State Water Survey.
With water use
increasing as the population swells, water levels will continue to fall
-from a few inches a year to a few feet depending on location.
"They're pulling it
out faster than they can recharge," says Harry Hendrickson, former head
of groundwater education for the Illinois Department of Natural
Resources.
Think last summer
was bad, when the drought sparked water restrictions?
"The water demands
we're seeing now because of the dry weather could be a normal demand we
see in a wet year in 30 years," Wehrmann said. "And then what do you do
when you have a dry year?"
Only when drought
reaches out and touches homeowners, or when water bills go up, do water
discussions dot government meetings.
Either those
discussions continue to flow, or the water in long-term won't, warn
experts who've been studying water availability in Chicago's collar
counties.
Supply and
demand
The math is simple.
Today, 7 million
people live in the six-county northeastern Illinois region.
They use 630
million gallons of water per day, or 90 gallons of water per person per
day -average use of all Americans, according to the U.S. Geological
Survey.
In 2020, population
forecasts show the six-county region hitting 9-million people.
If the average
holds, they'll use 810 million gallons of water each and every day.
Statistically,
there will be enough water overall to accommodate that demand.
Realistically,
however, the distribution of growth and existing water sources won't
match up. Many towns, because of money, geography or federal limits,
can't tap into Lake Michigan.
That means they
must rely on the water down below - which will be in short supply as
soon as 2020, according to a Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission
study.
Kane and McHenry
counties sit in the bull's-eye of water worries because they're chiefly
reliant on wells. Among the townships at risk are Batavia, Dundee,
Geneva, Rutland and St. Charles in Kane County, and Algonquin and
Grafton in McHenry County.
Some spots in
DuPage, Lake and Will counties could run into some of the same shortages, experts
say.
Naperville
Township in DuPage County, Hanover and
Rich townships in Cook County, and DuPage and Joliet
townships in Will County could be in jeopardy.
The communities in
Cook and Lake counties now drinking Lake
Michigan water, however, shouldn't think they have no worries.
The rate at which
outlying areas tap into aquifers ultimately affects how fast Lake
Michigan gets replenished.
"It's like a ripple
effect," warns state Sen. Susan Garrett, a Democrat from Lake Forest who
has been sounding the alarm in Springfield about long-term water
shortages for several years.
The bull's-eye
McHenry
County's Groundwater Resources Management Plan predicts the county's population
growth, and corresponding surge in water demand, will rise 73 percent,
to about 63 million gallons per day, by 2030.
While there's
enough groundwater in the county as a whole to yield 120 million gallons
per day, the report warns certain townships may be in trouble given that
the distribution of water usage won't correspond to the water supply.
Algonquin, Grafton
and McHenry townships were named in the report as in need of monitoring
for water shortages by 2030, and Dorr, Nunda and Burton townships were
considered to be areas of growing concern.
The future of Kane County's water supply also has
been cast in a stark light, though a comprehensive account of its
situation still is under way.
Kane
County commissioned a five-year study to map the availability of water
underground and calculate the future demands of the region. The report
by the Illinois State Water and Geological Surveys is due out next year.
"The geological
study will enable us to literally take slices of the county in any
direction - north, south, east, west," said Paul Schuch, Kane County's director of water
resources. That, in turn, can help guide future growth in the county.
Lake not immune
Because so much of
Lake County sips water from Lake
Michigan, many residents there may feel like water shortages can't
affect them.
Philip J. Rovang,
Lake County's director of planning,
building and development doesn't sound so certain.
About 40 percent of
the county draws water from Lake Michigan, but whether enough water
exists below ground for the other 60 percent is unclear.
"We project that by
the year 2020, there's going to be 280,000 residents living in western
Lake County who will have to rely on
non-Lake Michigan water," Rovang says.
That doesn't bode
well for the county, since some officials are concerned certain aquifers
are already being overtaxed.
A study of water
availability is due out in a few years. It will provide a much clearer
picture of what to expect.
"As soon as the
results of the studies start coming in, then we can start reacting,"
Rovang says.
The water supply
could also impact future job growth.
The county
estimates 71,000 jobs will come to the county by 2020, a 20 percent
increase, but that won't happen if there isn't an ample supply of "This
is really a critical issue facing Lake
County from an economic development standpoint," Rovang warns. "If we cannot
guarantee a water supply to a future business, they're not going to come
here."
Outlook dismal
While projecting
future water problems is an imperfect science, the decline in well
levels is more measurable proof that groundwater aquifers are under
stress.
DuPage
County suffered a steady drop in well levels before most of its towns switched
to Lake Michigan water in the
1990s. Over 80 years, the water table in the county dropped 700 to 800
feet.
Since Lake Michigan
saved the day by largely relieving DuPage of its dependence on
groundwater, the well levels have climbed, but "it's not coming up as
quickly as anticipated," Hendrickson said.
That could be
because so much of the land is paved over, making it more difficult for
rain and snow to soak into the ground and recharge aquifers.
According to
Hendrickson, about 24 percent of
DuPage County has been paved
over, and "eastern Kane County is headed that way."
People who manage
wells see it, too.
Former Huntley
Utilities Superintendent Will Smith said some wells don't pump as much
water as they used to, and the water levels are slipping.
"Every year they
drop down 10 to 15 feet," Smith said.
Experts mean to
sound the alarm, but not raise a panic. The future is manageable, they
say, as long as communities start planning now.
"Our populations
are getting to the point where we are reaching the (the end of) easy
availability to draw water," said Larry Thomas of the Crystal Lake
engineering firm Baxter and Woodman. "Now we have to start thinking
about how we're going to allocate the water, how we're going to fairly
distribute the water."
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to Part II - Go to Part
III |