Mahomet Aquifer and Wetlands Restoration

In local environmental news this past month, a new State law to help protect the Mahomet aquifer has gone into effect and plans are moving forward on restoring wetlands in the Middle Fork River Forest Preserve. WCIA had an overview of the new law protecting the aquifer, the primary source of drinking water in the area, about a week ago:

The bill requires the IEPA to use existing information available from the state and federal agencies to identify unknown, unregulated or under-regulated waste disposal sites that sit above the aquifer and may pose a threat to surface water or groundwater resources.

The new law also seeks to establish a pilot program at the Pekin Metro Landfill to identify potential and current threats to the water quality of the Aquifer from the landfill.

The proposed legislation came from the recommendations of the Mahomet Aquifer Protection Task Force, a bipartisan coalition of central Illinois lawmakers from both chambers of the General Assembly, including Representative Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) and Senator Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet).

That full article with video segment here. Previous Cheat Sheet post on the Mahomet Aquifer Protection Task Force here. The News-Gazette also had a brief Q&A on the new law here. Additional background on a gas leak impacting the aquifer that helped spur new protections on the Cheat Sheet here. The News-Gazette had a good summary of the gas leak and lawsuit timeline earlier this year:

Nearly 40 area residents are now part of lawsuits that accuse Peoples Gas of contaminating drinking water when a large amount of natural gas was leaked into the Mahomet Aquifer about three years ago.

According to a press release from Spiros Law, the firm filed a second lawsuit Monday in Champaign County Circuit Court against The Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company on behalf of an additional 21 people affected by a gas leak from Manlove Field, an underground natural-gas storage facility operated by Peoples Gas in rural Mahomet. There are now 38 people who are part of the pair of lawsuits, Spiros Law stated...

The situation came to light in late 2016 when some residents in the Mahomet area began noticing issues with their well water. Since then, Peoples Gas has acknowledged the leak at a natural-gas well at Manlove Field, 4,000 feet underground, which contaminated private water wells.

That full article available here.

The News-Gazette also had an overview of the plans for the Middle Fork wetlands restoration a few weeks ago:

The wetlands were created by beavers that had dammed up the area, but resulting flooding was affecting area farmland, so the dams had to be busted. The beavers moved on, as did the bald eagles.

Kuntz said the plan is to restore the wetlands without causing flooding problems for adjacent private property...

The work will involve building a berm with a structure that staff will be able to control for the season...

Wuellner said money from a fundraising effort in 2018 — plus a $21,000 grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation and a Department of Natural Resources grant — will help pay for the wetland restoration project.

More information at the full article here, including an update on the Willow Pond project (previous Cheat Sheet post on that here) and mention of the attention the Dark Sky Park is bringing to these issues.