East Central Illinois Regional Water Supply Planning Committee

News:

Future mtgs: May 24, expected location: Bloomington/ IAA Bldg

Urbana seeks input on Sustainable Water Management Plan-- May 7, 6PM, Urbana will host an Open House with light refreshments where the public can review and discuss the plan with City staff and the Sustainability Advisory Commission.

The Drought of 2012-- read the report from the Illinois Drought Response Task Force (Mar 2013, 7.9 MB)

The Value of Water: a new video from the National Water Research Institute that discusses the value of water.

Kaskaskia region water supply planning reports are available at ISWS website

Rain barrel sale in CU: more details about the May 25th sale and about the rain barrels

Clean Water Celebration: April 21 (4-8) & 22 (9-2), Peoria Civic Center Sunday's Featured Speaker: Stiv Wilson, The 5 Gyres Institute of Portland OR

Drought 2012 newsletters: July 2012 (revised 7/5/12) & Sept 2012: read more about drought and what you can do

Springfield's CWLP offers rebates for new toilets, 9/2/2012

Additional drought info: Illinois Drought Response Task Force convened in 2012, Legislation proposed, ISWS drought info, USGS Illinois Water Science Center drought info, & UI Turfgrass info

Drought Subcommittee-- plan with strategies for moving forward

2012 RWSPC Stakeholders Mtg, March 29 in Urbana IL-- View the meeting presentations

View Springfield's Water Story: Planning for the Future. This video views well with the Windows Media Player and runs approx. 42 minutes.

Email a news item to the Web Administrator

About the East Central Illinois RWSPC

Want to participate?

Join one of RWSPC's 12 interest groups-- Agriculture, Small Business, Public, Water Authorities, Water Utilites, Municipal, Environmental, County, Rural Water Districts, Industry, Electric Generating Utilites, and Soil and Water Conservation Districts. You can provide input to the RWSPC Committee Members.

How do you join?

Contact Robbie Berg at 217/493-7407 or by email (earthpartners@hotmail.com) and provide your email address, your interest group, & your contact info or
Join the RWSPC listserv-- send an email to listsrv@list.rwspc.org, include this phrase in the message-- subscribe RWSPC_all, your interest group & your contact info.

MAC Charge to RWSPC (adopted 2011)

The following charge from the MAC to the RWSPC builds on progress made, especially the 2009 RWSPC report A Plan to Improve the Planning and Management of Water Supplies in East-Central Illinois, the 2010 MAC Strategic and Operating Plan, and recent amendments to the MAC Bylaws. To serve as the planning committee to consider the current and future issues of water supply and demand, and to develop plans that will be recommended to appropriate local, county and state units of government and others for implementation and action. read the complete charge.

Mission Statement

To serve as the planning committee to consider the current and future issues of water supply and demand, and to develop plans that will be recommended to appropriate local, county and state units of government and others for implementation and action.

Objectives

The primary objectives and activites of the RWSPC are to:

Utilize water-resource research findings by the state agencies (i.e., Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois State Geological Survey)
Develop water demand scenarios to year 2050
Evaluate water supply and demand management options as potential implementation of such options might benefit the citizens of east central Illinois
Create a regional water-supply plan that reflects a newly developed understanding of water availability given research findings on supplies and demand scenarios and plans for growth, development and land-use change
Propose and support outreach and public education activites.

RWSPC met these objectives and developed an initial water-supply plan in June 2009. Click here to read its Reports. RWSPC recognized this plan to be an initial effort and recommended that the Plan be revised on a 5 year cycle.

Overview

While Illinois has significant sources of both groundwater and surface water, the growing state population and increasing demand for water is expected to strain current resources.

In January 2006, Governor Rod Blagojevich signed Executive Order 2006-01 to develop a comprehensive, statewide water supply planning and management strategy. The Executive Order assigns the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Office of Water Resources (IDNR-OWR) to oversee the process in coordination with the State Water Survey (SWS). To begin the effort, the State selected two areas most at risk for water shortages and conflicts: the Northeastern Illinois Deep Aquifer and the Mahomet aquifer, spanning central and east-central counties of Vermilion, Iroquois, Ford, Champaign, McLean, Macon DeWitt, Piatt, Woodford, Tazewell, Mason, Logan, Menard, Cass and Sangamon.

To implement the requirements of Executive Order 2006-001, the Mahomet Aquifer Consortium (MAC) started a three year regional water supply planning process with a funding grant from IDNR-OWR. The first task was to convene the East Central Illinois Regional Water Supply Planning Committee (RWSPC). This local planning commitee will help collect the data needed to draft the regional water supply plan, and also outline and approve their regional plans.

The East Central Illinois RWSPC includes twelve members, one each from the following interest areas: Agriculture, Small Business, Public, water Authorities, Water Utilites, Municipal Environmental, County, Rural Water Districts, Industry, Electric Generating Utilites, and Soil and Water Conservation Districts. The members are also geographically balanced by region as follows: West region (Cass, Logan Mason, Menard, Sangamon and Tazewell counties); Central region (DeWitt, Macon, McLean, Piatt and Woodford counties); and East region (Champaign, Ford, Iroquois, and Vermilion counties).