A new state program is offering financial assistance to help Wisconsin residents and businesses replace some of the state’s thousands of contaminated wells.
With $10 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, the Department of Natural Resources estimates it can help clean up more than 1,000 wells across the state.
About 1.7 million people in Wisconsin rely on private wells for drinking water, and the state Department of Health Services estimates at least one in 10 wells has high levels of nitrate, a chemical found in fertilizers and manure that is hazardous, especially for pregnant women and infants.
Wisconsin’s Groundwater Coordinating Council estimates more than 42,000 private wells exceed state standards for nitrate. To replace them all would cost more than $440 million, according to the council’s 2022 report to the Legislature.
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Rep. Katrina Shankland, D-Stevens Point, said the program could be a “game changer,” especially in districts like hers where up to one in four wells are contaminated.
Gov. Tony Evers directed that the ARPA-funded program loosen some of the eligibility guidelines under the state’s existing well replacement program, providing grants to those with higher incomes and lower levels of contamination and dropping a condition that nitrate-contaminated wells could only be eligible if used to water livestock.
“They may qualify under the new requirements,” said DNR Secretary Preston Cole.
Families and businesses — including churches, day care centers and restaurants — with incomes of less than $100,000 are eligible, and the grants can be used for wells contaminated with nitrate, arsenic and some bacteria, as well as concentrations of toxic PFAS compounds that exceed state health guidelines.
The grants can cover up to $16,000 of the cost to reconstruct, replace or cap a contaminated well, install a treatment system or hook up to a public water system.
The DNR says it has received nearly two dozen applications since launching the program on Oct. 3 and on Tuesday announced it has awarded nearly $35,000 to five recipients in Marathon, Portage and Winnebago counties.
The DNR will continue to accept and review applications until the funding is exhausted.
For more information and links to application forms, visit go.madison.com/dnr-well-grants.
PFAS: A selection of State Journal coverage of forever chemicals
A selection of State Journal coverage of forever chemicals.
The Department of Natural Resources combined information from drinking and surface water monitoring programs, health consumption advisories, and a database of contaminated sites into a single online map.
The Department of Natural Resources and Department of Health Services issued a health advisory Tuesday for several fish species in Castle Rock Lake and Lake Mohawksin.
The county has not provided data to support the claim but says it plans to expand the pilot to other contaminated parts of the airport.
The synthetic chemicals, which do not break down naturally, have been linked to health problems including low birth weight, cancer, and liver disease.
The sites both drain into Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona, where health officials have warned anglers to limit consumption of fish.
The Wisconsin Groundwater Coordinating Council’s annual report to the Legislature faults the natural resources policy board for failure to enact new groundwater standards recommended by state health experts.
The county is asking the courts to strike testing requirements in the permit for stormwater that drains from the airport into Lake Monona through Starkweather Creek, where PFAS contamination has made fish unsafe to eat.
The guidelines released Wednesday are thousands of times lower than Wisconsin’s first drinking water standards for the fluorinated compounds known as PFOA and PFOS, which took effect the same day.
Mikalsen warned the committee could suspend the standards if the department doesn’t lawfully implement them.
The suit claims the defendants knew since the early 1980s that the chemicals could damage the liver, kidneys and nervous system among other negative health effects.
There was no discussion of new or modified limits for about two dozen other substances, including Trichloroethylene, a common dry cleaning chemical known as TCE, and chromium-6, a carcinogen made famous by Erin Brockovich.
In the face of widespread public support, the Natural Resources Board voted 3-3 with one abstention Wednesday to reject rules to limit certain fluorinated compounds known as PFAS to a list of regulated chemicals in groundwater.
County Executive Joe Parisi announced Thursday that he would introduce a resolution authorizing the county to hire outside attorneys to pursue class-action litigation against manufacturers of fluorinated compounds known as PFAS.
Testing of groundwater under the base has revealed fluorinated compounds known as PFAS at levels thousands of times above proposed state standards, but the federally-guided process requires years of study, planning and approval.