{"id":36364,"date":"2026-04-27T09:56:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=36364"},"modified":"2026-04-27T09:56:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:56:22","slug":"drought-causing-ongoing-concerns-legislative-hearings-about-illinois-water-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/36364-drought-causing-ongoing-concerns-legislative-hearings-about-illinois-water-supply\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought Causing Ongoing Concerns, Legislative Hearings About Illinois Water Supply"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Chicago skyline as pictured across Lake Michigan from Evanston. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>Article Summary<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Months of drought and hot temperatures have impacted water levels in Illinois, leading to concerns about water supply.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those concerns are furthered by the development of data centers, particularly in regions with depleted aquifers.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Water supplies vary across the state because different regions rely on different sources, and some water is easier to access than in other regions.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Advocates say Illinois needs a clear picture of who\u2019s in charge of overseeing water usage and a focused plan for how to manage it.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By NIKOEL HYTREK<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Capitol News Illinois<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:nhytrek@capitolnewsillinois.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nhytrek@capitolnewsillinois.com<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Drought and hot temperatures have burdened Illinois since last summer, and despite rain improving conditions this spring, the long-term lack of precipitation and high temperatures have impacted water supplies across the state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sullivan, a small city southwest of Decatur, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wcia.com\/news\/moultrie-county\/sullivan-still-asking-residents-to-conserve-water-as-emergency-continues\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">declared a water emergency<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in February that\u2019s expected to last until June. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.centralillinoisproud.com\/news\/local-news\/bloomington-drought-alert-moderate\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomington<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> recently ended its severe drought proclamation and eased restrictions on water use, but residents are encouraged to continue being judicious. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.illinois.gov\/news\/release.html?releaseid=32337\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">delayed opening Heidecke Lake<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> near Morris to boating because of low water levels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As local governments confront water challenges, regional droughts have called attention to lax or nonexistent water management policies in Illinois. State lawmakers have caught on, too, especially as they consider how to regulate data centers, a new type of high-end water user that\u2019s been spreading across the state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trent Ford, the Illinois state climatologist, said water monitoring and management can be tricky.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt is definitely a really, really complex thing with water systems in Illinois,\u201d Ford said. \u201cYou know, there&#8217;s always this overarching kind of perception of water abundance, in some cases overabundance. But that&#8217;s definitely not the case. That&#8217;s only a perception. It&#8217;s a mirage of abundance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He said rain in 2026 has improved topsoil moisture, but months of drought mean the dryness has impacted deeper layers of soil and water. Critical rivers like the Sangamon, the Mackinaw, the Kankakee, the Iroquois and the Mason, \u201care still way below where they normally are this time of the year,\u201d he said, though he expects those levels to improve.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lawmakers in Springfield, meanwhile, are only in the early phases of considering statewide water use plans, mostly discussing the problem in nonvoting <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.senatorlauraellman.com\/news\/press-releases\/347-ellman-leads-conversation-on-illinois-groundwater-future\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">subject matter hearings<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The onset of data center development, however, has at least brought the conversations to the forefront.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere&#8217;s several agencies that touch on this, and then you&#8217;ve got local control that does things,\u201d Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, said. \u201cYou&#8217;ve got the multi-state and multi-country water compact of the Great Lakes. So this is not just something that you can easily introduce and then be done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe goal of course is to make sure that our state is safeguarding water so people can have quality of life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Water monitoring<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Illinoisans rely on lakes, rivers, shallow groundwater and deep groundwater, but measuring water supply can be difficult because it depends on the region of the state and the structure of the ground beneath the surface.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cUnderneath our feet gets really complicated really fast,\u201d said Daniel Abrams, a principal research scientist at the Illinois Water Survey. \u201cBeing able to understand that is critical. And we&#8217;re looking at all kinds of ways to image and improve that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Water Survey is not a government agency, but it works with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to conduct research and monitor water supply by using wells that measure groundwater levels and data mapping tools that visualize Illinois\u2019 hydrology. The Water Survey also advises municipalities and counties about managing water.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Water Survey does important research, but the lack of state regulatory authority over water makes its task difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Abrams said water supply modeling is a crucial tool for water management, but it\u2019s not perfect, and he and his team are always looking for more data \u2014 particularly about water use.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOne of the data sources that right now we have is annual demand,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the more we start thinking about drought, the more we start thinking about those peak demand conditions.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shallow aquifers and surface water sources are more susceptible to drought in the short term, but they rebound quickly after rain, Abrams explained. The opposite is true of deep aquifers like the Mahomet Aquifer in central Illinois or the deep sandstone aquifer system in northern Illinois. That means drought and overuse have different effects depending on the location.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More frequent reporting from municipalities, irrigators and industries would give the Water Survey a better idea of how seasonal demand works and the condition of aquifer levels, he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cGetting information on a quarterly basis or a monthly basis would make our models more accurate and could help us better understand things like impacts of drought to our water supply,\u201d said Jenna Shelton, director of the Illinois Water Survey.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Illinois Water Inventory Program collects reports about withdrawals, but it doesn\u2019t have a full picture of that demand because of missing data.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since 2010, the Water Use Act of 1983 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.isws.illinois.edu\/environmental-public-health-information-and-data-services\/illinois-water-inventory-program\/frequently-asked-questions\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">requires annual water usage reports<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for \u201call high-capacity wells or intakes pumping 70 gallons per minute or more (100,000 gallons\/day).\u201d Systems of wells and intakes that have a combined pumping rate of 70 gallons per minute or greater also fall under the requirement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.isws.illinois.edu\/environmental-public-health-information-and-data-services\/illinois-water-inventory-program\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">high-capacity entities include<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> public water suppliers like municipalities, industrial-commercial facilities, wildlife and recreation operations and agriculture irrigators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Multiple sources told Capitol News Illinois that enforcement of reporting requirements across the state is lax.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are not a government agency, you know, we cannot really enforce the industries, farmers to report water use every year to us,\u201d said Zhenxing \u201cJason\u201d Zhang, a principal research scientist at the Water Survey who leads state and regional water supply planning. \u201cWe don\u2019t get 100% compliance.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Water use reporting is key to understanding what the state will need in the future and how to plan for it, he said. Without that information, resource planning is more difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Management and planning<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nora Beck, an employee at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, or CMAP, said the state needs to update its rules about who\u2019s in charge of water resources so the state can better manage them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEverything legislative has been sort of piecemeal over time,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CMAP does water supply planning for northeast Illinois, where many supply issues exist because people outside of Chicago and its immediate suburbs rely on hard-to-replenish aquifers where water levels have dropped dramatically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A 2018 report from the Water Survey, for example, projected Joliet would be <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.isws.illinois.edu\/groundwater-science\/chicago%27s-southwest-suburbs\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">unable to meet water demands<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by 2030 if it continued using the aquifer, so the city is in the process of moving to Lake Michigan as a source.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Illinois has a limit for how much water it\u2019s allowed to draw from the lake because of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/worldwater.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/water_brief_great_lakes_water_agreement.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Great Lakes\u2013St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Compact \u2014 an agreement between eight states and two Canadian provinces concerning water quality and withdrawals from the Great Lakes. That limit doesn\u2019t exist for groundwater, Beck said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beck said approximately 80% of the people CMAP serves rely on Lake Michigan for water, but the rest rely on groundwater sources.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe have a water budget, basically, for the Lake Michigan properties,\u201d she said. \u201cThe remaining 20% are mostly on groundwater sources where there&#8217;s not a clear budget. Any user can pump as much as they want.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ventura, the senator from Joliet, has been involved in water policy since she worked as a naturalist for Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She said looking at each water region in Illinois separately and streamlining oversight authority would be smart approaches to management. Ventura also suggested the state should mimic the Great Lakes Water Compact to create water use agreements across Illinois.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHaving that regional study is still really important,\u201d Ventura said. \u201cAnd then looking at things like refilling aquifers or having a long-term plan for access to water, I think is important for everyone in our state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s no single agency that manages water use in Illinois, either, she said. The IDNR, IEPA and the Illinois Department of Agriculture all manage water to different degrees, and with different focuses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of the three agencies, the IDNR shoulders the most responsibility for water supply and works with groups like CMAP, the State Water Plan Task Force and the Water Survey to do regional planning and monitoring. But at a February hearing on groundwater, a representative from the IDNR said the agency faces serious staffing shortages that limit its ability to monitor usage and enforce reporting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since 2024, CMAP has worked with IDNR, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the Northwest Water Planning Alliance to develop a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/cmap.illinois.gov\/news-updates\/water-sustainability-in-the-northwest-water-planning-alliance-region\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">water sustainability plan<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for five counties in northeastern Illinois. Beck said a statewide version of that could be helpful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beck has also discussed governance strategies with Freshwater Society, a Minnesota initiative to better manage drinking water. Minnesota is currently developing updated rules for groundwater governance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI don&#8217;t think we need to copy directly from another state,\u201d Beck said. \u201cBut I think it&#8217;s important to note that these other states are recognizing that they need to upgrade their groundwater governance, and they&#8217;re improving it in ways.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Other solutions<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ventura has introduced or cosponsored legislation to give the Illinois Department of Agriculture <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ilga.gov\/Legislation\/BillStatus?DocNum=3162&amp;GAID=18&amp;DocTypeID=SB&amp;LegId=165807&amp;SessionID=114\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">more authority over some withdrawals<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and a bill to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ilga.gov\/Legislation\/BillStatus?DocNum=3889&amp;GAID=18&amp;DocTypeID=SB&amp;LegId=167332&amp;SessionID=114\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">put more restrictions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on private companies buying water from municipalities. But those measures have stalled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She also has a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ilga.gov\/Legislation\/BillStatus?DocNum=3162&amp;GAID=18&amp;DocTypeID=SB&amp;LegId=165807&amp;SessionID=114\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">data center regulation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> bill that would require the facilities to file water use reports and monitor discharged water for pollutants, a provision that could become part of a broader data center regulatory bill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/capitolnewsillinois.com\/news\/power-act-lawmakers-seek-to-regulate-new-data-centers-power-water-usage\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">POWER Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a widely debated data center regulatory bill, has several water-related provisions, including requirements for usage, efficiency and water quality monitoring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are looking at, you know, hundreds, thousands, millions of people who need access to water and what that looks like for the future as we move into things like data centers and other climate concerns,\u201d Ventura said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/capitolnewsillinois.com\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Capitol News Illinois<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Chicago skyline as pictured across Lake Michigan from Evanston. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki) Article Summary Months of drought and hot temperatures have impacted water levels [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":36369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Drought Causing Ongoing Concerns, Legislative Hearings About Illinois Water Supply - Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/36364-drought-causing-ongoing-concerns-legislative-hearings-about-illinois-water-supply\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drought Causing Ongoing Concerns, Legislative Hearings About Illinois Water Supply - 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