Aquifer Update

Following up on the Mahomet Aquifer gas leak, new State legislation could help residents get a better warning for such issues in the future. From the News-Gazette yesterday:

Aquifer update: New legal measures part of 'ongoing process'
...
That provision is aimed at preventing a repeat of a 2016 incident in which there was a leak at Peoples Gas' Manlove Field — an underground natural gas storage facility in Champaign County — which wasn't quickly reported to residents and authorities. The leak is said to have contaminated private water wells.

"These poor folks didn't even know it happened for months," said state Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, who sponsored the bill in the Senate along with Sen. Scott Bennett, D-Champaign. Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, was one of the house sponsors.

Specifically, the new law requires notification of all private residents, owners and operators of private water systems and businesses within a mile-and-a-half of the boundaries of a natural gas incident to be notified "as soon as practically possible."

The notices to private residents and businesses must be attempted through verbal communication, and if that can't be done, through a notice posted on properties where it can easily be seen.

The bill also requires an annual state inspection of all gas storage fields lying on the footprint of an EPA-designated sole source aquifer to make sure there aren't any deficiencies that could pose a threat to public health.

Full article here.