State should protect ground water supply
5:43 PM 11/30/03

State lawmakers ought to make it a top priority to update Wisconsin's ground water law to better protect our supply of this valuable resource. <

The problem is that the law, adopted in 1983, is aimed chiefly at protecting the quality of the ground water from pollution. It failed to anticipate sufficiently that the quantity of the ground water would be threatened by high-capacity wells. <

A bitter dispute four years ago, over an attempt to locate a Perrier well and water bottling plant in the state, highlights the law's inadequacy. The need for action was recently reinforced by a disagreement over the regulatory approval of a Polar Ice well for a bottling operation in the northeastern part of the state. <

Perrier, an international company, eventually abandoned its plans for Wisconsin, not because regulators decided its well should be denied permits but because of furious public protest. The smaller Polar Ice plan, from a local businessman, now also faces protest. A coalition of environmental groups and the Menominee Indian Tribe has sued to block that well. <

Given the impact a single high-capacity well can have in a watershed, public concern about the wells is understandable. But Wisconsin shouldn't make decisions about ground water use based on which organizations can raise the biggest fuss or hire the best lawyers. Rather, state regulators should have the power to make reasoned decisions based on scientific evidence. That authority is now lacking. <

To regulate high-capacity wells - those withdrawing at least 100,000 gallons a day - the state Department of Natural Resources still relies on a law that dates back to 1945. The law authorizes regulators to deny a permit for a high-capacity well only if the well would adversely affect a public utility. If the well would damage other nearby users of the ground water or threaten the environment, the DNR is powerless to stop it. <

There is one exception: The environmental impact can be considered if the well consumes more than 2 million gallons a day. That threshold is so high as to be nonsensical: The Polar Ice well would pump 180,000 gallons a day, and the proposed Perrier well would have pumped 720,000 gallons a day. <

Furthermore, even the 100,000 gallon-a-day definition of a high-capacity well has a loophole. Several wells on more than one piece of property in the same area could draw far beyond 100,000 gallons collectively as long as each well remained below the 100,000 gallon limit. <

Gaps in the law like these ought to be closed because of the importance of maintaining the ground water levels. We need water for domestic, agricultural and industrial use - and to maintain the environment. Ground water levels are connected to surface water levels. Drain the water table in an area, and wetlands, springs, streams, lakes and related wildlife habitat may soon may be depleted as well. <

And we are draining our ground water. Wisconsin's overall withdrawals from the ground water are up 33 percent in the past 15 years. Declining water table levels are evident in the southeastern part of the state, the lower Fox River Valley and in Dane County, where the water table near the UW Arboretum has dropped three to six feet. <

To be sure, an updating of Wisconsin's ground water law should avoid placing too much faith in regulators. For example, ground water science is not yet good enough to let regulators tell exactly how much water can be drawn safely from an aquifer. <

Moreover, lawmakers should not be lured into a crusade against industrial use of ground water. Ground water is an economic resource as well as an environmental resource. <

That said, lawmaker should act now to update state law so that it adequately considers the costs that high-capacity wells exact on our ground water.