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This means that when more than 11.1 million people in Illinois
turned the tap for water for drinking, cooking or bathing, they
received drinking water that did not exceed established health
limits for state and federally regulated contaminants. The report,
prepared as required by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act,
reflects an improvement of more than 3 percent in compliance since
1995, when publication of annual compliance reports was first
required from all states by U.S. EPA. The data show that 93.2
percent of those served by Illinois community water supplies in
calendar year 2006 received drinking water that met all health
requirements.
In Illinois, water suppliers providing drinking water to
consumers are regulated either as community or non-community water
supplies, based chiefly on the number of users they serve for
specified periods of time. Campgrounds and highway rest stops are
considered non-community water supplies, for instance, as are day
care centers, schools and factories. These are regulated by the
Illinois Department of Public Health.
"The Illinois EPA's goal is for every public water supply system
to provide water that is consistently safe to drink, and these most
recent figures show we continue to make progress toward that goal,"
said IEPA Director Douglas Scott.
Community water supplies are regulated by the Illinois EPA.
During 2006, there were 6,007 public water supplies in the state;
1,789 of them were defined as community water supplies falling under
IEPA regulation.
During 2006, a total of 743 out of the 6,007 public water
supplies in the state were shown to have violations of regulations.
These 743 water systems accumulated a total of 4,635 violations. As
in the past, most violations were monitoring or reporting violations
(failure to collect samples or provide documentation), were short in
duration, and the public water supply returned to compliance by the
next reporting period. The overall potential risk to public health
was minimal. When a potential health risk was present, the public
water system was required to issue public notification to all
consumers.
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U.S. EPA and the states evaluate compliance on the basis of both
acute (short-term) and chronic (long-term) health requirements, with
standards that usually differ for the two categories. The latest
IEPA figures show that 99.9 percent of the population served by
community water supplies received water that met all acute
standards, and 93.2 percent received water that was in compliance
with chronic requirements. Standards for acute requirements are
usually stricter than chronic standards. For most contaminants, the
latter is based on projected health risks from daily consumption of
large amounts (approximately two liters) of water on a daily basis
over an extended period of time.
In most cases, when contaminant levels exceed maximum allowable
limits, treatment is required to be installed in the shortest amount
of time, taking into consideration the cost, health effects (acute
versus long-term) and size of the project. All of the public water
supplies that had violations during 2006 have either returned to
compliance, entered into an enforceable agreement and schedule to
take whatever steps are needed to return to compliance, or are in
the formal enforcement process involving the office of the Illinois
attorney general. Enforcement cases involving the attorney general's
office could result in monetary penalties as well as the water
supply being required to achieve compliance with the regulations.
Copies of the summary or complete annual water system compliance
reports can be obtained by contacting the Illinois EPA's Division of
Public Water Supplies, #13, P.O. Box 19276, Springfield, IL
62794-9276; phone 217-785-8653; or at
www.epa.state.il.us/water/compliance/
drinking-water/compliance-report/index.html.
[Text from
Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency news release received from
the
Illinois Office of
Communication and Information]
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