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City looks to Kankakee River as new source of safer sipping

 JOLIET — Although political and legal battles continue over federal standards for radium in drinking water, most towns in violation believe the war is over and are resigned to finding ways to pay for tens of millions of dollars in improvements.

   A few weeks ago, six towns in Wisconsin and one in Minnesota agreed to suspend their court fight for four months and try to seek a resolution with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over radium standards. About 600 towns nationwide are affected by the EPA ruling, including 11 water systems in Will County.

   Joliet, the largest water system in the nation that doesn't comply with radium standards, expects to spend $70 million complying with the order by drawing water from the Kankakee River.

   But are the billions of dollars in water system improvements really necessary to protect people's health? The seven towns fighting the ruling are joined in their lawsuit by scientific groups like the Nuclear Energy Institute and Radiation, Science and Health Inc., which point to the lack of evidence that exposure to low levels of radiation causes cancer.

   "We're asking whether in setting the standards, (the EPA) relied on the best available science and properly undertook a cost-analysis study," said Kurt Meitz, city attorney for Waukesha, Wis.

   In December, the EPA announced that by late 2003, it would finally start enforcing radium standards originally adopted in 1976. Since 1991, the EPA considered allowing radium levels four times greater than those set by the 1976 rule. But the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996 made it impossible to loosen an existing standard, the EPA decided.

   "People should remember that we didn't change the standard. These systems should have been in compliance 20 years ago. For them to say we should take a look at costs now isn't fair," said Miguel Del Toral, safe drinking water regulation manager for the EPA's regional office in Chicago.

Joliet and Kankakee River

   To comply with radium standards, Joliet plans to spend $70 million building a system to draw as much as 40 million gallons of water per day from the Kankakee River. Plans call for drawing the water from a site in the Des Plaines Conservation Area near Wilmington and pumping it more than 10 miles through an underground pipeline parallel to Interstate 55, then treating it at a facility to be built next to the West Side Treatment Plant off U.S. 6.

   Back in 1988, the city council awarded a $1.8 million contract to the Chicago engineering firm Alvord, Burdick & Howson, one of the nation's leading designers of water supply systems. But the Kankakee water project was in limbo for a decade when it appeared radium standards might be relaxed. The company has been paid $882,000 so far, said Rich Yucius, the city's finance director.

   Alvord, Burdick & Howson is now back at work designing Joliet's new public water system and should submit plans sometime in June, said Dennis Duffield, the city's director of public works.

   The new system will use about 60 percent less energy than the existing system, which pumps water from five shallow wells and 12 deep wells, Duffield said. Two new deeps wells will come on line this month, bringing the total number of wells on-line to 19. The city plans to maintain most of the wells so that when the Kankakee River flow drops below a certain level, the city can pump well water into the Des Plaines River. The Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers converge to form the Illinois River a short distance from Joliet's proposed intake site.

   The current flow of the Kankakee River at the Wilmington dam is 5,700 cubic feet per second, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. That works out to 3.7 billion gallons per day. Joliet intends to draw less than 30 million gallons per day on average, but even at peak capacity of 40 million gallons per day, Joliet's take would be only 1 percent of the Kankakee's flow.

'Drain it dry'?

   Still, Joliet's proposal concerns some recreation enthusiasts and Wilmington residents. The Kankakee River is home to the state record walleye for both Illinois and Indiana. About 80 years ago, you could see the river's limestone bottom, but the river is now clouded with sand and sediment that gradually is making the river wider and shallower.

   "In summertime, when we don't get a lot of rain, the water levels drop pretty far. Joliet's a big city, and I think there is a concern that if Joliet and Wilmington both draw water from the Kankakee, it will drain it dry," said Robert Kernc, a Wilmington alderman who grew up in Joliet.

   During low-flow periods, Joliet is proposing to draw a blend of water from the Kankakee and the Dresden Pool of the Des Plaines River, Duffield said. Because of its poor quality, the Des Plaines itself cannot be considered a source for Joliet. When the Kankakee is low, Joliet would have to replenish every gallon it draws.

Other water sources

   Joliet could have considered other options. Lake Michigan water was dismissed as being too expensive. Building systems that act like water softeners would remove the radium from the deep-well water, but that wouldn't increase the capacity needed to quench the growing city's thirst.

   "The cost of building the new system and treating the deep wells is about the same, but (treating well water) wouldn't give us any additional capacity," Duffield said.

   Water from shallow wells typically doesn't contain excess amounts of radium, which exists naturally in rock 1,000 feet or more below the surface. But shallow wells are susceptible to other types of contamination, like the deadly Cryptosporidium bacteria.

   Digging more deep wells might encounter resistance from regulators concerned about the capacity of large, underground pools of water known as aquifers. For years, geologists have warned about draining the northern Midwest's Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer system to dangerously low levels and made particular note of heavy use in the Joliet area.

Joliet vs. other towns

   Even though the Kankakee River water supply project will be the most expensive public works project in the city's history, Joliet is far better off than most towns in terms of planning for compliance with federal standards for radium levels in municipal water supplies. The city first issued bonds to pay for the project 13 years ago and has amassed more than $56 million in reserves.

   Residents of other towns confronted with expensive solutions could see their water bills skyrocket. Batavia, for example, is considering building a lime-treatment system with neighboring Geneva at a cost of $43 million, plus at least $1 million in annual personnel costs to staff the facility. The problem is, Batavia has an annual budget of just $18 million and hasn't set aside any money because the federal government in 1991 considered loosening the radium standards.

   "We're looking at a big raise in our water rates. A water utility is run like a business. It has to pay for itself," said Jim Volk, a Batavia City Council member.

   Other towns have higher levels of radium in their water supplies, but with more than 100,000 customers, Joliet's system is the largest in the nation that doesn't comply with standards for radium.

   Many towns complain that complying with the radium standards amounts to an unfunded federal mandate. The U.S. government isn't offering to help pay for the tens of millions of dollars in improvements to each water system, they say.

   The federal government does make some money available in the form of loans to help pay for water system improvements, said Ben Fallon, an aide to U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Morris.

   "We may have to look at increasing it if a lot of communities are having difficulty meeting these needs," Fallon said.

   The federal money is administered by states. Since the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996, Illinois has loaned more than $300 million to towns that have had to improve their drinking water system, said Joan Muraro, spokeswoman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's Bureau of Water.

   The state matches the money the federal government puts up, and as towns repay the loans, that money goes back into a revolving fund.

   "There's definitely not enough in the fund to issue blanket assistance to every community that needs to comply with radium standards," Muraro said.

Effects on customers

   Joliet officials say it's too early to tell how residents' water rates will be affected by the $70 million project to draw drinking water from the Kankakee River.

   The engineering study will contain cost estimates, and those figures could determine whether neighboring towns like Channahon and Plainfield buy water from Joliet.

   Even though the project will increase the capacity of the city's water system by about 50 percent when completed in about four years, existing water-use restrictions likely will remain in place.

   People still will be asked to limit how often they water their lawns and wash their cars during the summer.

   Because of the capacity issue, Joliet is likely to go ahead with the Kankakee River water-supply project, even if federal regulators were to someday reverse their position on radium standards. That means by 2005, Joliet customers will be drinking surface water from a river that originates in Indiana instead of ground water from wells 1,500 feet below the surface.

   The Kankakee River water won't be as hard as water from the city's wells. The taste will be noticeably different. And it won't have radium in it.