Abby Crisostomo
The Northwest Water Planning Alliance water reporting tool will allow the group to better understand water usage trends in the region.
This week is National Groundwater Awareness Week, which makes it the perfect time for the Northwest Water Planning Alliance (NWPA) to roll out its new water reporting tool. The Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) has been working with NWPA since 2010 to implement a collaborative planning approach to sensible water supply management. NWPA—the water supply planning group for groundwater and river water communities located within the Fox River Watershed—partnered with the Ill. State Water Survey in 2013 to develop a new online water reporting tool for member communities.
This project was undertaken as a strategy to track monthly and annual water use among NWPA member communities. The widespread use of this tool by NWPA water providers is crucial to achieving one of the three over-arching goals set forth in the recently adopted NWPA Strategic Plan—the development of sustainable water use policies and practices that are widely adopted and protective of water supplies. In order to formulate regional best practices, providers and elected officials need to have a clear picture of supply and demand. This water reporting tool will allow NWPA to better understand the demand component by providing a way to visualize regional water usage trends among members over time.
NWPA is asking all member communities to submit data on a monthly basis. The user-friendly tool tracks 15 variables including water supplied from shallow wells, deep wells and river sources along with consumer demand and water main break information. All these variables are typically already being monitored by providers, so monthly data submission is not time-consuming. In addition, monthly, complete data submission has the added benefit of fulfilling the annual Ill. State Water Survey Illinois Water Inventory Program submission requirement.
The water reporting tool underwent beta-testing with a handful of communities, and feedback has been incorporated into the design. The tool has received praise from water suppliers already using it. The next phase for this tool is to develop, in partnership with the State Water Survey, a platform for member communities to view the compiled water usage and consumer demand data to aide collaborative water supply planning in the NWPA area.
More robust datasets create the foundation for more informed decision-making by elected officials and water suppliers, so MPC is pleased to be a part of this great step forward for regional water supply planning in northeastern Illinois.
The following providers are currently submitting data via the NWPA water reporting tool:
- Village of Bartlett
- Brooks Farm Subdivision—Lake County Public Works
- City of Aurora
- City of Batavia
- City of Elgin
- City of McHenry
- City of Woodstock
- Countryside Lake Subdivision—Lake County Public Works
- Arden Shores Estates—Lake County Public Works
- Lake County Public Water District
- Providence at Painted Lakes
- Village of East Dundee
- Village of Elburn
- Village of Hinckley
- Village of Huntley
- Village of Lake in the Hills
- Village of Lake Villa
- Village of Lake Zurich
- Village of Newark
- Village of Oswego
- Village of Wood Dale