106 CONSERVATION OF GROUND WATER 



dustrial water in Joliet and several other towns south of 

 Chicago, it has been proposed to construct a 35-mile aque- 

 duct from Lake Michigan. The Illinois-Indiana Water 

 Company was organized for this purpose in 1946, and the 

 project has been approved by the states of Indiana and Il- 

 linois. The city of Chicago, Department of Public Works, 

 also has proposed a plan for serving Lake Michigan water 

 to some of the towns west and south of Chicago. 



In the rice-growing areas where water is pumped from wells, 

 it is almost certain that the ground water must have traveled 

 some distance from the recharge area. It cannot be replenished 

 within the rice-growing area, because rice requires a soil so 

 tight that water can be ponded upon it. Thus very little down- 

 ward percolation can be expected, and water pumped from 

 underlying ground-water reservoirs can be replenished only 

 by lateral movement from recharge areas some distance away. 

 In the rice-growing regions of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, 

 large quantities of water are pumped from wells. A progres- 

 sive decline of water levels in wells in the Grand Prairie of 

 Arkansas (see page 49) and in southwestern Louisiana indi- 

 cates that underground storage is being depleted and that 

 water is not moving into the developed part of the aquifer as 

 fast as it is being pumped out. 



Lake Charles and the Rice Area, Louisiana. 40 One of the 

 areas of greatest ground-water development in the humid 

 regions of the United States is in southwestern Louisiana. 

 In 1948 about 650 million gallons a day was pumped from 



40 References: Fisk, H. N., "A Geological Investigation of the Mississippi 

 Alluvial Valley," Mississippi River Commission, Vicksburg, 

 Miss., 1944, 78 pp. plus 33 pp. 

 Jones, P. H., Ground Water, An Advance Look at a Forth- 

 coming Report by U.S. Geologists, Rice News, vol. 14, 

 no. 10, 1947; Ground-water Summary, Rice News, vol. 15, 

 no. 12, pp. 3-7, 1948. 

 Jones, P. H., and A. N. Turcan, Ground-water Use for Rice 

 Irrigation in Southwestern Louisiana, Rice News, vol. 16, 

 no. 1, 1949. 



