CHAMPAIGN — To the dismay of a health care advocacy group, the city will keep its 4-year-old "groundwater restriction ordinance" after a council vote on Tuesday night.

Opponents of the ordinance said it gives corporations a free pass on cleaning up contaminated properties, but in general, the city council disagreed. The majority of representatives on Tuesday indicated they were unsure repealing the ordinance would accomplish the goal of encouraging the cleanup of contaminated sites.

Council member Marci Dodds said it could, in fact, discourage cleanup and subsequent redevelopment of contaminated properties.

"I prefer cleanup to no cleanup," Dodds said.

The consequences of a "groundwater restriction ordinance" are complicated. The ordinance prevents residents from drilling wells for drinking water within the city limits.

When the agencies responsible for the cleanup of properties that may have harmful chemicals in the soil — at the former sites of gas stations or dry cleaners, for example — seek support from the Illinois EPA, they often use the ordinance as the explanation for why further cleanup of the groundwater may not be necessary.

The rationale is that, if the cleaners can get the contamination in the groundwater to low enough levels and residents cannot drill a well to drink the contaminated water, then it cannot hurt them.

The council decision on Tuesday is somewhat of a reversal of a February vote to roll back the groundwater ordinance and only grant its use on a case-by-case basis. Council members did not leave the ordinance completely untouched, though; they informally supported an addition to the ordinance that would require public notification when a business intended to use the ordinance as part of its cleanup method.

Business owners on Tuesday explained their cleanup processes to the city council, which ultimately sided with them and said that the ordinance is more important to redevelopment of under-used properties than it is to the environment. More than 200 Illinois communities have such an ordinance, city officials said.

That was not received well by members of the Fifth and Hill Neighborhood Rights Group, which has watched the cleanup of the site of a former manufactured gas plant at that intersection. The ordinance does not affect the cleanup of the Ameren Illinois property, but it could affect how the company approaches the cleanup of adjacent homes.

"Polluters can use these ordinances as a first resort for dealing with contamination, instead of coming up with a real cleanup plan," said Crissy Turino, an organizer with the group.

Members of the group have repeated claims that contaminated soil is infiltrating residents' homes via vapor. Ameren officials have repeatedly denied that claim.

Mayor Don Gerard said the group has yet to offer any solid evidence that the groundwater is affecting residents.

"It's just kind of vague and it doesn't add to the credibility of the argument," Gerard said.

Had the council decided to repeal the ordinance, five businesses would have lost their approval from the Illinois EPA and likely would have needed to take further steps to clean up their properties.

"I think there's been a bit of misinformation thrown out that the groundwater ordinance is used" as a first resort, said Karl Newman, a branch manager for environmental services at Geocon Professional Services.

That was the case for Garber's Cleaners on Wright Street, said owner Steve Hamburg. He spent about $300,000 cleaning up the property per EPA protocol, but estimated he might have to spend another $2 million to revisit the job if the ordinance were repealed.

Without the ordinance, many of these cleanups would not even happen in the first place, said Mike Butler, a consultant for Garber's Cleaners.

"I think you'd end up with more abandoned, blighted properties, dangerous properties in the community," he said.

Council member Tom Bruno was the only representative to vote against denying the repeal of the ordinance. He said the city should take every step possible to encourage cleanup of contamination, and he worries how future generations might look back on the decision.

"I'm afraid that, 20 years from now, we'll have regrets about the Fifth and Hill neighborhood," Bruno said.