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Kane County Urged to Develop Drought Plan

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jul. 5--Kane County's leaders need to start preparing for severe drought conditions, warned the county's head of emergency services.

"Water levels within the county are fairly low," said Donald Bryant, emergency management director. The Fox River, a water source for Elgin and Aurora, is at 25 percent of normal flow, he said.

"Some rural [private] wells need to be dug deeper," Bryant said. "It's a matter of concern that we need to take back to our communities."

Drought conditions in the region recently were reclassified from "moderate" to "severe," officials said.

During last week's inaugural meeting of the Kane County Emergency Management Council, a consortium of county and municipal emergency services officials, Bryant urged local officials to update him on changes in municipal water-use restrictions. Cities and villages need to prepare a regional response if the drought becomes an emergency, he said.

Bryant said he has talked with officials at the Chicago office of the National Weather Service and "they don't see any major relief in the future."

With the exception of Algonquin, which is prohibiting all outside water usage, municipalities throughout Kane County have only modest, limited restrictions on water use based on the day of the week and time of day, Bryant said.

More than 95 percent of the well water pumped in the county comes from private wells, said Julie Wiegel, well and septic coordinator for the county Health Department. Unincorporated areas of the county have about 15,000 private wells, she said.

"Talking to some well drillers, they've been very, very busy," Wiegel said. "I think a lot of people have had to have their pumps lowered."

Paul Schuch, the county's director of water resources, said the seasonal shift in water levels in Illinois is not unusual.

"We have just become accustomed to the easy availability of water in northeastern Illinois," Schuch said. "People have to realize that it is not uncommon for this part of the country."

What the drought conditions illustrate, however, is that long term, "there is a certain limit to the amount of water that can be pumped from both the deep and shallow aquifers and that can come from the Fox River," Schuch said.

"We need to be better stewards of that resource," he said.

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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