Arrival of pigs may be climax to long Island Lake saga

"The pigs are coming," says Bob Wargaski, beaming like a soon-to-be proud parent.

The Wauconda Township man is ready to start a hog farm, meant to spite neighboring Island Lake and stop the village's plans to dig a community well and build a water tower across the street from his property in unincorporated Lake County.

Wargaski claims he is only trying to protect his property values and keep the village from drawing down his own private well that's part of the same aquifer. He says his neighbors are rallying behind him in this fight.

"We're all on ag-zone property and they are backing my play," he said. "It's going to draw down their wells too."

Island Lake has a well off Dowell Road that Wargaski estimates is about 250 feet from his well.

With a few pigs expected to be delivered to his home any day, Wargaski's three-year fight against Island Lake could come to a climax because it's against state law to store animal feces within 400 feet of a public water source.

Wargaski says his pig sty is about 200 feet from the water tower site.

So who wins - the village and its proposed water tower or Wargaski and his plans for a pig farm?

"It's whoever gets there first," said Rick Cobb, deputy division manager for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's division of public water supplies.

And it would appear at this point that the village got there first.

Though Wargaski has a permit from the Illinois Department of Agriculture for the hog containment shed on his land, he only started building it three months after the IEPA granted the village a permit to convert its test well into a permanent one.

Cobb said the fact that Wargaski is building the storage facility is not the problem.

"As soon he starts handling livestock waste in that little unit he's got constructed there (with permission) from Department of Agriculture, he is violating the law," he said. "Up until that time, it's not really considered a potential secondary source (of contamination)."

Cobb said Wargaski would be in violation of both the IEPA and Department of Agriculture permits. He could be cited for violation of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act, if he doesn't respect existing setbacks for village wells.

At that point, it's up to the Illinois Attorney General's Office to decide whether to file charges against Wargaski.

"I guess we'll have to deal with that when the time comes," Wargaski said. "I welcome the Attorney General to come up to Island Lake and I want her to spend the day because there's a lot of people that want to talk to her about what's going on in Island Lake."

Though his pig farm complies with Lake County's regulations for property zoned agricultural and the 4-foot deep containment pit is built to state standards, Wargaski says he knows pig feces don't belong anywhere near a public water supply.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cryptosporidium live in infected animal intestines and are commonly spread through water.

Wargaski contends he was there first because the village has "done absolutely nothing" to convert its test well into a permanent one since receiving the IEPA permit in May.

However, the village in June provided the IEPA with a project schedule with a final completion date of April 2010, Cobb said.

"The key thing is work has been initiated," Cobb said. "They have submitted a schedule in writing that tells us that the schedule for converting that into a full blown production well. And that's really all we needed to know. That is a key piece of information that (Wargaski) seems to be lacking."

Cobb said there's a whole lot of engineering work that goes into a project of such magnitude and the village is doing it in phases.

Island Lake Mayor Tom Hyde has said Wargaski has the right to do anything legal he wants with his unincorporated property. The mayor could not be reached for comment on the pigs' anticipated arrival.

Wargaski sued the village last November to try to stop the water tower project. The village recently countersued claiming the pig farm would be a public nuisance that could contaminate village water supplies.

Wargaski vows to see the fight through to the end.

"The more I kept on saying 'please don't,' they just totally ignored me," he said. "And now it's a matter of principle."

Wargaski, who grew up on a farm and raises 40 bison in Wisconsin, says he's legally allowed to keep up to 20 hogs but he'll be starting out the farm with a fewer number and plans to raise them for slaughter.