(Crain's) — The Chicago region faces a long-term water shortage that could hit some outlying suburbs by 2015, much sooner than previously anticipated, according to recently updated studies.
Projections by the University of Illinois' Illinois Water Survey show that water supplies that lie under Aurora, the state's second-largest city, and Joliet soon won't be able to keep up with population growth.
The deep aquifers are "not going to go dry, but it will become cost-inefficient to pump water from them," said Josh Ellis, a water policy expert at the Metropolitan Planning Council, a Chicago-based regional policy think tank. "2015 is the tipping point."
Better planning and conservation measures — starting now, before water shortages become a crisis — could postpone that scenario, according to land use and environmental activists.
That's the theme of a Tuesday morning forum hosted by MPC and Openlands, a Northeastern Illinois environmental group. Local experts, water system executives, environmentalists and others are expected to attend the session at law firm Drinker Biddle in Chicago.
Communities served by Lake Michigan face the same long-term problem. From drinking water to reversal of the Chicago River, the Chicago region is now diverting 85% of the lake water that a 1967 Supreme Court decision allows; without conservation, that limit could be reached within 15 years, said Mr. Ellis.
Participants at the meeting are expected to fine-tune proposed recommendations, such as the creation of regional planning groups across the state and a $20-million revolving loan fund for water conservation measures, possibly financed by a state tax on water consumption.
"Any funding mechanism that incentivizes conservation is a good thing," said Lenore Beyer-Clow, Openlands' policy director. "We're trying to get people to think more strategically about decisions they make."
Water conservation and water pricing raise complex issues that need to be addressed carefully, said Don Coursey, a University of Chicago economist who will tell the meeting about his work in developing a market-based water usage system in New Mexico.
"You need to step back and look at things systemically," he said. "What are the current prices, what kind of signals are those sending people and are they correct?"
Earlier calls for action by MPC and Openlands led to a 2006 executive order by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, creating two pilot regional water planning groups for east central Illinois and northeast Illinois, which led to the most recent studies, but their state funding expires next year.
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