justnorth posted on November 17, 2007 12:54 :: 1622 Views
MADISON – Cleaning up nearly 600 contaminated sites, implementing a law to protect groundwater quantity, and increasing efforts to better understand and address groundwater contamination from manure are among the advances Wisconsin made in 2007 in protecting groundwater, according to a recently released report to the Wisconsin Legislature.
The report also summarizes major groundwater quality and quantity concerns in Wisconsin, including increasing threats from pesticides, viruses, and microbes, and recommends future directions for protection activities. The 2007 Groundwater Coordinating Council Report to the Legislature can be found online at the Department of Natural Resources Web site.
Groundwater is drinking water source for 70 percent of all Wisconsin residents.
“Wisconsin has one of the nation’s most comprehensive groundwater protection and research programs. In 2007, we continued to make important progress in protecting this valuable natural resource that sustains our lakes, rivers, wetlands and springs, and in turn, sustains our quality of life,” says Todd Ambs, who leads the Department of Natural Resources Water Division and chairs the Groundwater Coordinating Council, the group that issued the report.
The council includes representatives from state agencies and the University of Wisconsin system and is responsible for ensuring that the state’s groundwater research and policies are coordinated and cost effective and that state agencies provide consistent communications with the public. The report summarizes activities related to groundwater protection and management in fiscal year 2007, which runs from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2007,
Anders Andren, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Water Resources Institute, says that the 2007 report emphasizes the significant achievements that are possible through a comprehensive state-level-approach to protecting groundwater.
“In its first two decades, the Groundwater Coordinating Council has leveraged just $13.4 million in state money to obtain additional local and national funding in support of more than 330 research and monitoring projects addressing significant threats to Wisconsin’s groundwater quality and quantity,” he says.
Highlights include cleanups, research on virus and manure contamination of groundwater
Report highlights include staff work to write, and then implement, administrative rules for the new groundwater quantity law and work by an advisory committee to law makers to develop recommendations on how to carry out other parts of the law. Passed in 2004, this law provides additional protections when a new high capacity well is proposed near a high quality surface water in Wisconsin.
2007 highlights include:
- The cleanup of 586 contaminated properties in 2007, which brought to more than 14,000 the total number of sites certified by the DNR as cleaned up in Wisconsin.
- Awarding 47 grants totaling $1.7 million 30 communities to help them investigate and remove tanks, drums and other abandoned containers, and making another $4.6 million available to start or continue clean up at sites where groundwater contamination is confirmed or suspected.
- Re-prioritization of research needs resulting in funding for four new projects starting July 1 addressing contamination of private drinking water wells by improper manure spreading. More funding will be directed in 2008 toward projects aimed at better understanding viruses and bacteria contamination in groundwater and developing better tests to determine the extent of such contamination.
- Creation of a Web site to make groundwater information and data accessible and useable by local governments and planners for their comprehensive planning processes, and for citizens to understand groundwater contamination in their area. The Web site was developed by the Center for Land Use Education at UW-Stevens Point and the U.S. Geological Survey and is found at [wi.water.usgs.gov/gwcomp].
- Distribution of more than 10,000 copies of a popular DNR publication on the uses of and threats to groundwater. Groundwater, Wisconsin’s Buried Treasure was also the basis for the training of teachers from 21 different schools and nature centers in using a groundwater model.
A new publication highlighting Groundwater Coordinating Council research and monitoring projects – and the state policies and groundwater management practices that sprang from them – can be found online at [aqua.wisc.edu].
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeff Helmuth (608) 266-5234 or Mike Lemcke - (608) 266-2104
Wisconsin Drinking Water Fast Facts
- 70 percent of Wisconsin citizens rely on groundwater from underground aquifers for their drinking water. A growing number, however, get their drinking water from “surface water supplies” -- water drawn from Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, or Lake Winnebago.
- Wisconsin residents, businesses and agriculture use a combined 1 billion gallons of groundwater each day. Residential use is about 205 million gallons a day, or 55 per person.
- Groundwater is crucial to Wisconsin’s economy. Fruit and vegetable processing, cheese making, dairy farming, meat processing and beer brewing all need clean, pure, groundwater to make the goods for which the Badger state is famous. A dairy cow producing 100 pounds of milk slurps 50 gallons each day, and Wisconsin has 1.3 million dairy cows. Brewing the 8 million barrels of beer Wisconsin produces annually requires nearly 13 billion gallons of water.
- Groundwater is part of countless manufacturing processes, and commercial and industrial companies draw over 106 million gallons of groundwater each day from their own wells, plus use another 150 million gallons of groundwater provided them by municipal water wells.
- Groundwater is critical for providing year-round flow for many lakes, rivers and wetlands in Wisconsin. Groundwater, in fact, is the life blood of Wisconsin’s 10,000 miles of trout streams.
Growing demand, dwindling supplies in some areas
- In the last half-century, Wisconsin has gained more than 2 million new residents and greatly increased its groundwater use. Today, Wisconsinites use one-third more --189 million gallons more a day -- than even 15 years ago.
- The number of irrigated farm acres in Wisconsin has tripled since 1969, from 105,526 to over 390 acres. Irrigation equipment withdraws 182 million gallons per day in the growing season, almost all of it groundwater.
- Despite being a water-rich state, growing demand is depleting aquifers in some parts of Wisconsin, with consequences for public health and for the streams, wetlands and other waters that depend on groundwater. For instance:
- In Dane County water levels in the deep aquifer that Madison and its suburbs draw water from has dropped more than 60 feet from levels before European settlement.
- Goundwater levels in aquifers in some areas of southeastern Wisconsin have dropped more than 450 feet below original levels due to intensive pumping. Such drawdowns can harm groundwater quality and also require that new wells are drilled deeper, making them more expensive. The flow of groundwater into lakes and stream and wetlands can be reduced, hurting the fish, wildlife and plant populations.
- A worsening arsenic contamination problem in parts of Winnebago and Outagamie counties exacerbated by increasing demand for water. Experts believe the 1,000 new wells being drilled in that area every year are introducing oxygen into the aquifers and triggering geochemical reactions that release arsenic from the bedrock.
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