[Peace] May 13th - tell USEPA we want them to protect our aquifer!

[Stuart Levy]

OcCUpiers, and peaceable people,

Here's a call to demonstrate on a local environmental issue.    If 
you're willing to take part, and/or willing to help plan, make signs, 
etc., please lemme know.

On Tuesday evening, May 13th, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Champaign, the 
US EPA will hold a public hearing on the question of whether they should 
grant "sole-source aquifer" protection to the Mahomet Aquifer.   More on 
that below. [*]


We should be *out on the sidewalks* to greet them - to show the 
Environmental Protection Agency that yes, we do want them to protect the 
aquifer that provides drinking water for much of central Illinois, 
including Champaign-Urbana!   And, we should take part in the hearing too.

Rough schedule -

We'd gather around 5:30-5:45, carrying signs, outside the Hilton Garden 
Inn - near Kirby and State in Champaign.

At 6:30, inside the hotel, the EPA will hold an informational session 
about the sole-source process and the Mahomet aquifer. That'd probably 
mark the end of the demonstration part, I'm thinking - we'd either go 
inside to hear what they have to say, or take off. But we can talk about 
this.

At 7:30 will be the formal EPA public hearing.   Hope some of us will 
decide to stay and speak to the issue.

[*] Sole source aquifer?
The USEPA can designate an aquifer as "sole source" if it's the primary 
source of drinking water for the population living above it, and there'd 
be no feasible replacement for it - which certainly seems to be true for 
the Mahomet Aquifer.   A consortium of cities and counties, including 
Champaign and Urbana, has applied to the EPA to give the Mahomet Aquifer 
this status.   It would have some legal consequences, though not 
everything we might want:

  * It /would/ entail special review of any future Federally-supported
    project that might affect the aquifer (and this could include some
    surprises, such as animal feedlots, which sometimes do get Federal
    funding).
  * It /wouldn't/ directly require such a review of our current big
    worry, the proposal to store toxic PCBs in the Clinton landfill,
    which overlies the aquifer - that is, we could succeed on Sole
    Source but still lose on having PCBs in the landfill.   However,
    those PCBs aren't currently permitted to be disposed of in Clinton -
    the USEPA is considering that question too, in a separate process.

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