National Drinking Water Database
IL American-Terra Cotta - Crystal Lake, IL
Serves 684 people - Test data available: 2004-2009
This drinking water quality report shows results of tests conducted by the water utility and provided to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. It is part of EWG's national database that includes 47,667 drinking water utilities and 20 million test results. Water utilities nationwide detected more than 300 pollutants between 2004 and 2009. More than half of these chemicals are unregulated, legal in any amount. Despite this widespread contamination, the federal government invests few resources to protecting rivers, reservoirs, and groundwater from pollution in the first place. The information below summarizes test results for this utility and lists potential health concerns.
Contaminants Exceeding Health Guidelines
Other Detected Contaminants
| Contaminant | Average/ Maximum Result | Health Limit Exceeded | Legal Limit Exceeded | Testing History -Tested  -Detected  -Over Health Guidelines  -Over Legal Limit* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barium (total)Barium is a mineral that enters drinking water through drilling and mining waste runoff, discharges from chemical industries and erosion of natural deposits. | 44.25 ppb 50 ppb | No 700 ppb | No 2000 ppb |  |
| Chromium (total)Chromium is a metal that pollutes drinking water due to discharge from steel and pulp mills and erosion of natural deposits. | 25 ppb 100 ppb | No 100 ppb | No 100 ppb | |
| Selenium (total)Selenium is a naturally occurring element that contaminates water due to mining or petrolum refining, fly-ash from coal-burning power plants, and irrigation of arid farmland soils high in selenium. | 12.5 ppb 50 ppb | No 50 ppb | No 50 ppb | |
| NOTE: Each dot in the above graph represents one month. * Water utilities are noted as exceeding the legal limit if any test is above the maximum contaminant level (MCL). Most MCLs are based on annual averages so exceeding the MCL for one test does not necessarily indicate that the system is out of compliance. | ||||
Contaminants Not Detected - 68 chemicals
1,1,1-Trichloroethane, 1,1,2-Trichloroethane, 1,1-Dichloroethylene, 1,2 Dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP), 1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene, 1,2-Dichloroethane, 1,2-Dichloropropane, 2,4,5-TP (Silvex), 2,4-d, Alachlor (Lasso), Aldicarb, Aldicarb sulfone, Aldicarb sulfoxide, Aldrin, Aroclor 1016, Aroclor 1221, Aroclor 1232, Aroclor 1248, Aroclor 1254, Aroclor 1260, Atrazine, Benzene, Benzo[a]pyrene, Carbofuran, Carbon tetrachloride, Chlordane, cis-1,2-Dichloroethylene, Dalapon, Di(2-Ethylhexyl) adipate, Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, Dibromoacetic acid, Dichloromethane (methylene chloride), Dieldrin, Dinoseb, Diquat, Endothall, Endrin, Ethylbenzene, Ethylene dibromide (EDB), Heptachlor, Heptachlor epoxide, Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), Hexachlorocyclopentadiene, Lindane, Methoxychlor, Monobromoacetic acid, Monochloroacetic acid, Monochlorobenzene (Chlorobenzene), Mtbe, Nitrate, Nitrate & nitrite, Nitrite, o-Dichlorobenzene, Oxamyl (Vydate), p-Dichlorobenzene, Pentachlorophenol, Picloram, Simazine, Styrene, Tetrachloroethylene, Toluene, Total Ddt, Total polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Toxaphene, trans-1,2-Dichloroethylene, Trichloroethylene, Vinyl chloride, Xylenes (total)
Pollution Summary
EPA Violation Summary
No violations were reported for this system since 2004.
Information on violations is drawn directly from EPA's national violations database in the Agency's Safe Drinking Water Information System. Analyses by others have raised questions about the quality of the information in EPA's database. For the purposes of this investigation, EWG is not showing below or including in our analyses, those violations for individual water suppliers that occurred on days for which the total number of violations assigned by EPA to that water supplier was greater than 20. This criteria was based on common characteristics of incorrect violations data as identified by water utilities, from a review of EPA's violations data by several hundred utilities prior to the release of EWG's investigation.