Experts: Ethanol's water demands a concern

Many industries use more than a million gallons of water each day, still far less than the 23 million gallons per day used by Champaign and Urbana or the 500 million gallons per day that Chicago pumps from Lake Michigan.

The Mahomet Aquifer, along which several ethanol plants are proposed, has plenty of water. Running across the midsection of the state from the Indiana line to the Illinois River, it supplies an estimated 250 million gallons of water per day to municipalities, industry, farms and homes.

That is a pittance given the estimated 13 trillion gallons of water in the aquifer, Wehrmann said. It would take more than a century to pump the aquifer dry even if no water returned through rainfall and other natural recycling, which amounts to about 40 million gallons per day, he said.

Even so, there can be a cumulative effect as demand is added.

"When you get down to the local level, there will be impact," Wehrmann said. "You can't take the water out of the ground without lowering water to some degree. Other well owners may see water levels fall. In some cases their pumps may go out of the water, and that may mean lowering a well or pump."

That bothers Dan Meyer, a retired food processing company worker who lives near Lincoln. A proposed plant near there would tap the aquifer, and he worries not only about supply, especially if there is a long drought, but also about the risk of groundwater contamination.

"If the Mahomet Aquifer gets contaminated, we'll be buying our water in 500 gallon tanks," he said. "I'm extremely nervous because of the numbers and where they're located. Your subdivisions, your towns are going to be affected."

But ethanol proponents say there is virtually no risk ethanol will contaminate groundwater, and there is almost no wastewater from its production.

"The water that comes out of the plant may be cleaner than was pumped into it," said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association.

Ethanol supporters also say there is more danger of running out of corn than there is of using too much water, and that will wind up limiting the number of plants in a particular area.

"Corn generally comes from a 50-mile radius around an ethanol plant, so there's only so many plants you can put in and get the corn you need to operate them," said Phil Shane, marketing director for the Illinois Corn Growers Association

As for the plant near Champaign, the city and Urbana lifted their objections after the company proposing it agreed to study the potential impact on the Mahomet Aquifer before moving ahead. The Champaign County Board voted last month to allow ethanol plants as a special use in heavy industry zones.

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