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player ready...The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has determined the Sauk Village water supply is safe to drink and can be used to clean food, wash dishes and bathe, Sauk Village Mayor Lewis Towers told residents Thursday night.
Towers, reading from an IEPA memo, said restaurants and groceries can continue using municipal water for preparing food.
The memo comes after the IEPA announced this week that the municipal water supply contains high levels of vinyl chloride — a byproduct of certain types of manufacturing and a common pollutant in urban communities. Long-term exposure to vinyl chloride can increase the risk of cancer, the U.S. EPA says.
Some of the roughly 200 residents attending the special Village Board meeting at Village Hall interrupted Towers’ reading of the memo with boos and grumbling.
The news Thursday night seemed to contradict a meeting the village held Thursday morning with business owners, who were told to prepare to find other sources of water for washing dishes and preparing food.
“I would not use that water,” village Trustee Enoch Benson said Thursday morning, calling the level of contamination “extremely high.”
Towers said the IEPA is not requiring the village to shut down any wells, but it is requiring weekly water samples, as well as treatment of the wells as the levels are reduced.
The IEPA also is requiring the village to provide bottled water to residents and businesses who request it, Towers said. More information would be available later, he said.
“We are doing everything that we can possibly do to make sure we are in compliance with the IEPA mandate,” Towers said.