Last night, the Champaign City Council voted to approve of a settlement in a suit filed against the Clinton Landfill, which is storing hazardous waste just above the aquifer itself.
In the settlement, the following were agreed to, according to The News-Gazette:
— The Clinton Landfill cannot accept any more manufactured gas plant source material — a byproduct of an outdated method of coal production — or submit any more applications to dispose of MGPs or PCBs at the landfill.
— There will have to be semiannual groundwater monitoring at the landfill.
— The Clinton Landfill has to provide at least 24 inches of additional cover over the MGPs currently there.
— The landfill does not have to remove 27,000 to 30,000 tons of MGP waste already there.
The Mahomet Aquifer is one of the foremost fresh water sources in the country, and provides drinking water for a chunck of Illinois that spans from the Indiana border to Peoria. While some Champaign council members believe the measure doesn’t go far enough (and it very well may not), it seems like at least a marginal step in the right direction as far as protecting our bounty of fresh water goes, so I’ll take it.
(Graphic by The Pantagraph)