At the request of the water district, the Illinois EPA has asked the state Pollution Control Board to designate as a regulated recharge area the 2,500 foot area surrounding the wells serving Peoria County's Pleasant Valley Public Water District. Such a designation would close the regulated recharge area to location of new potential sources of contamination such as municipal waste landfills, low level radioactive waste sites, Class V underground injection wells or special or hazardous waste landfills. The GPA established automatic 200 or 400 foot setback zones around all wells serving public water supplies and gave water supplies the option of establishing maximum setback zones of up to 1,000 feet around wells as an additional safeguard. In cases where an area's regional groundwater protection planning committee, after an extensive needs assessment of local geology, land use and existing businesses and industries, believes that even the maximum setback zone does not ensure adequate protection for the drinking water wells, the planning committee may begin the process of securing a regulated recharge area determination. The Illinois EPA is required by the GPA to request the designation once the request has been formally made.
Provision is made throughout the process for extensive public input.
The Pleasant Valley PWD lies within the four-county priority groundwater protection planning region serving Mason, Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties. In 1988, the Pleasant Valley PWD was the first public water supply in the state to designate a maximum setback zone. The district serves 1,296 service connections in an unincorporated area in Peoria county and sells water to an additional 300 services. Its sole source for the roughly 513,000 gallons of water pumped daily is in a sandy area overlain by sands, gravels and clay. Several industrial and commercial operations lie within its five year recharge area but outside the current 1,000 foot maximum setback zone.