Patrick C Mills (Former Employee)

Invasive species such as Asian carps have the potential to travel in the egg, larval, or fry stages from the Des Plaines River (DPR) to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) by way of the network of secondary-permeability features in the dolomite aquifer between these water bodies. Such movement would circumvent the electric fish barrier on the canal and allow Asian carps to travel...

On the basis of their recent review of the human health effects of hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] in public drinking water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering the need for Federal regulation of Cr(VI). Presently, only total chromium is regulated, at a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 100 micrograms per liter (µg/L). The occurrence of Cr(VI) in groundwater and surface...

A principal component of evaluating and managing water use is consumptive use. This is the portion of water withdrawn for a particular use, such as residential, which is evaporated, transpired, incorporated into products or crops, consumed by humans or livestock, or otherwise removed from the immediate water environment. The amount of consumptive use may be estimated by a water (mass)...

Exploratory studies were conducted at sites bordering the Fox River in Waukesha, Wisconsin, during 2010 and McHenry, Illinois, during 2011–13. The objectives of the studies were to assess strategies for the study of and insights into the potential for directly connected groundwater and surface-water systems with natural groundwater discharge to streams diverted and (or) streamflow...

Estimates of water withdrawals in the United States part of the Great Lakes Basin and 107 of its watersheds designated by the 8-digit hydrologic unit code (HUCs) indicate that about 30.3 billion gallons per day (Bgal/d) were withdrawn for practically all categories of use in 2005. Virtually all water withdrawn was freshwater. Surface-water withdrawals totaled 28.8 Bgal/d, or 95 percent...

Water-supply needs in Kendall County, in northern Illinois, are met exclusively from ground water derived from glacial drift aquifers and bedrock aquifers open to Silurian, Ordovician, and Cambrian System units. As a result of population growth in Kendall County and the surrounding area, water use has increased from about 1.2 million gallons per day in 1957 to more than 5 million gallons...