The Illinois Water
Inventory Program (IWIP), a comprehensive program to inventory water use
throughout the state, began in 1978. It is designed to collect data in three
major categories: water withdrawal, water use, and water returns. For each
water-using facility inventoried, the database includes locations and amounts
of water withdrawn from surface water and groundwater sources, as well as
significant amounts of water purchased from other facilities. Public water
supplies, self-supplied industries, irrigation, fish and wildlife, and
conservation uses are inventoried. Data can be summarized geographically by
county, township, and drainage basin, as well as by various water use and water
source categories for inclusion in the National Water Use Data System.
 |
|
Data Uses
Current
uses of the data collected through the IWIP program include:
! Determination of community water supply usage: See Surface Water Sources and Public Water Supply Intakes
! Examination of groundwater level observations and groundwater
withdrawals (for example, comparisons of potentiometric surface maps of the
Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer system and pumpage from that aquifer system).
! Water use projections.
! Comparisons of aquifer withdrawals to estimated aquifer recharge
(use-to-yield mapping).
! Regional groundwater modeling.
! Determination
of groundwater use for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake Michigan Diversion
Accounting Program.
! Environmental
impacts (for example, the impact of a toxic spill on aquifers or surface water).
! Impact of
high-capacity wells on neighboring wells.
! Publication in map form on the Arc/IMS portion of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s Source
Water Assessment Program. (This use is restricted to federal and state agency access only.)
Commercial-Industrial information is kept confidential:
While the amount of water withdrawn by public wells and intakes is
public information, the amount of water used by commercial and industrial facilities is not. Commercial-industrial pumpage,
whether from wells or surface water intakes, is kept confidential unless the facility grants a specific release of the data.
Commercial-industrial data is otherwise published only in combination with township or regional totals.
|
|
Every year, typically in January or February, a questionnaire about facilities’ use of water during the previous calendar year is sent to all participating facilities. Facilities are given approximately five weeks to complete and return the form in a postage-paid return envelope. These data are entered into the database. A second questionnaire is sent out to facilities who did not respond to the first questionnaire. The IWIP staff work year-round to gather information from participants in order to answer questions and fill data gaps for specific years.
How to Fill Out Your Water Inventory Form
This is a general
outline of the steps in completing your inventory form. Please refer to this explanation
of terms when completing the uppermost part of the first page of
the IWIP form.
The following links
display actual pages of the form and describe the questions in detail.
Wells
and Surface Water Intakes
Purchased
and Self-Supplied Water Use
Well Treatment, Rehabilitation, and Water Levels
If you are unsure about some part of the form or do not
know how to determine the amount of water your facility purchases or withdraws,
please do not hesitate to call the IWIP office at 217-333-0239 or send an
e-mail (tbryant@sws.uiuc.edu). Office
hours are 8-12 and 1-4:30, Monday through Friday.
Mailing
Address:
Illinois Water Inventory Program
Illinois State Water Survey
2204 Griffith Drive
Room 407A
Champaign, IL 61820-7463
Phone: 217-333-0239
Fax: 217-244-0777