“…With the area's large population (about 11 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013)), redistributing centers of commercial and industrial growth, and dwindling options for water supply, the Fox River may become increasingly relied upon as a supply source for public water. The Great Lakes Basin Compact (Great Lakes Commission, 2003) restricts withdrawals from nearby Lake Michigan; other appropriate surface water sources generally are unavailable; and the bedrock Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer underlying the region can not sustain a return to the long-term, high-volume withdrawals of past years because of yield (Visocky and others, 1985;Avery, 2005;Meyer and others, 2009) and water-quality limitations (Gilkeson and others, 1983;Balding, 1991;Kay, 2013).…”