House Bill 6153 amends pollution control facility that is seeking permission to dispose of Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) contaminated wastes, if the facility is located over an aquifer and the aquifer extends beyond the boundaries of the county where the facility is located.

HB 6153 requires that the governing body of each municipality that derives all of
its community water supply from the affected aquifer and that is outside of the
County that will host the facility, to approve the siting.
The Mahomet Aquifer is the sole source for community water supplies for at least 88 separate municipalities, most of which are located outside of DeWitt County. Most of the estimated 750,000 residents who rely on the Aquifer for their drinking water live outside of DeWitt County, which itself only has a population of 16,561 according to the 2010 census.

The DeWitt County Board, in approving a host agreement for this PCB waste landfill, ignored factual inaccuracies in the report of Clinton Landfill, Inc.’s consultant regarding the potential for PCBs to escape from the proposed facility and contaminate this critical source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of residents in Central Illinois.

PCBs are a known carcinogen that persist in their toxic form for extraordinary periods of time once released into the environment.

In recognition of their extreme and persistent toxicity in the environment, Congress enacted the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 1979, which banned the manufacture of PCBs and imposed more stringent requirements for their disposal.