Mahomet Aquifer Summit – A Call to Action

Mahomet Aquifer Summit – A much needed wake up call

The future of Central Illinois’ most important, and for many communities in Central Illinois the only source of drinking water, is in jeopardy! The Mahomet Aquifer provides drinking water for nearly 1,000,000 people in Central Illinois, in over 80 municipalities, including the Town of Normal. Contamination of this aquifer would be catastrophic to the region.

Area Disposal Company (aka Peoria Disposal Company) has won approval (which is now being contested as it was obtained in a process that violated state regulation and open meeting transparency) from local and state authorities to operate a chemical waste storage facility at their Clinton Landfill site, which sits directly over the Mahomet Aquifer. It is seeking approval from the US Environmental Protection agency to become a repository for chemical waste (PCBs and toxic coal gasification process waste) from around the country which would include operating a rail spur to bring in the material.

Over 100 people, including many local and state elected officials, attended a summit on this issue on Saturday 02/22/2014 hosted by the City of Bloomington and the Town of Normal. The purpose of the summit was to tell the story (and it is a nefarious one – how state regulators failed us and corporate power temporarily trumped integrity and public good) about how this waste facility came to be in operation, its future plans and the efforts (using both legal and citizen action) to oppose and stop it.

The issue is critical to the future of everyone in Central Illinois and the summit was a much needed wake-up call for citizen action and involvement on this issue.

The Town of Normal will post the entire video from the Summit on its website here:
https://www.normal.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=626

Folks wishing to get involved (and we all should) can contact:
http://mahometaquifer.org/contact-us/

The mahometaquifer.org website has a lot of information on the issue as well as updates on events and more can be found at:

http://ci.champaign.il.us/departments/public-works/residents/the-mahomet-aquifer/

https://www.facebook.com/clintonlandfill.watch

http://www.epa.state.il.us/community-relations/fact-sheets/clinton-3/index.html

Everyone should take the opportunity to inform themselves, then contact local officials, state representatives, the governor’s office and congressional representatives. Do everything you can to make sure that all of our elected officials are aware of how serious a threat this chemical waste disposal site is and how seriously voters take it and how closely we are watching.