A task force formed by the Illinois General Assembly to identify gaps in protection of the Mahomet Aquifer has issued its final recommendations. Illinois State Water Survey hydrologist George Roadcap served as a member of the task force, and other Prairie Research Institute scientists provided data and expertise to support the group’s yearlong effort.

The Mahomet Aquifer is one of Illinois’ most important groundwater resources, serving as the primary source of drinking water for more than 500,000 people in 15 Illinois counties and providing an estimated 220 million gallons of water per day to communities, agriculture, industry, and rural wells. The Mahomet Aquifer Protection Task Force was charged with:

• developing a state plan to maintain the groundwater quality of the Mahomet Aquifer;
• identifying current and potential contamination threats to the water quality of the Mahomet Aquifer;
• identifying actions that might be taken to ensure the long-term protection of the Mahomet Aquifer; and
• making legislative recommendations for the protection of the Mahomet Aquifer.

Among the task force’s top recommendations is a call to increase funding to PRI to support the use of helicopter-based time-domain electromagnetics (HTEM) technology to more accurately map and characterize the aquifer and to deploy state-of-the-art monitoring networks and analytical capabilities to identify emerging contaminants of concern.

The full task force report is available online.