CPZ suggests community wells for access to clean water

By Kevin O’Brien

As Marathon County wraps up a massive well-testing effort that started last year, conservation officials are suggesting the possibility of installing community filling stations where residents with contaminated wells could get clean, safe drinking water.

Representatives of Conservation, Planning and Zoning (CPZ) pitched the idea to the Environmental Resources Committee (ERC) at its March 5 meeting, where it was met with a mixture of skepticism and enthusiasm.

While testing hundreds of private wells across the county, conservationist Kirstie Heidenreich said she’s heard from many residents who said they are unable to simply switch to bottled water if they find out their tap water is contaminated.

“People are drinking unsafe water because they cannot afford to get clean water,” she said.

CPZ director Laurie Miskimins said the idea for community wells came from Chippewa County, which recently invested in water refill stations as part of its effort to combat groundwater contamination in heavily agricultural areas. Not only could the stations be used by landowners with contaminated wells, they could also provide water in case of an areawide emergency where access to water is cut off, she said.

Heidenreich called the idea an “outside-the-box solution that could benefit so many people,” including those who can’t afford to dig new wells on their own properties. She suggested that the county could partner with rural townships to have their town halls serve as filling sites.

ERC chairman Jacob Langenhahn, however, questioned the logistics of installing a handful of community wells, which would inevitably force people to drive long distances to access them.

“We’re such a big county, I don’t know if that would be appropriate,” he said.

Langenhahn also wondered where the money would come from for maintaining the community wells over the long run, and who would be responsible for making sure they’re well-maintained.

Supervisor Tony Sherfinski echoed Langenhahn’s concerns, questioning how much each filling station would cost and whether it could provide an adequate amount of water.

Heindenreich said the basic cost of establishing one community well is $15,000, but she acknowledged that the cost of electrical and plumbing work could be as high as $38,000. Still, she thinks the filling stations would be a good investment based on the help they could provide to desperate rural residents without access to clean and plentiful water.

“I do think people would make the drive to come to these, just hearing from people around the county,” she said. “I had someone call me from the Athens area and said ‘We have no water. Our livestock have no water.’” Heidenreich said the filling stations would be “industrial” strength, able to withstand temperatures as low as 50 below zero and provide constant water pressure for large fill-ups. She also noted that Chippewa County is building small structures around their wells to protect them from snow and ice and prolong their lifespans.

At least one committee member, supervisor David Oberbeck, shared Heidenreich’s optimism about the idea, noting that one or two stations strategically placed along STH 29 could potentially serve a significant number of residents.

“I think it’s a great idea because, if you’re out of a water, that’s a critical need,” he said.

Langenhahn, however, worried about the impacts to rural townships that host filling stations, especially if Wausau residents concerned about PFAS start traveling out to smaller municipalities for their water.

“If there’s only four stations for potentially 138,000 people, I have some concerns,” he said.

Still, Langenhahn said he does not want to “derail the discussion” about the potential filling sites and agreed to continue the conversation at a future meeting.

“I’m more than willing to have discussions about this,” he said.

Miskimins said her department would do some more research into Chippewa County’s community wells project and bring back more information to the committee.

The discussion about filling stations was part of a larger conversation about the county’s ongoing effort to test water from at least 1,000 private wells across the county (25 per township), with the goal of using the data to update the county’s 23-year-old groundwater protection plan.

Miskimins said CPZ staff have collected about 800 well samples so far, and a few hundred more have signed up but have yet to submit their water testing kits.

“We will be doing one more round of sampling very soon, hopefully in the near future,” she said. “It’s predominantly going to be filling in gaps in towns where we didn’t get as many sign-ups as we had hoped for.”

The water samples are being tested by UW-Stevens Point’s Water and Environmental Lab (WEAL), and the results that have come from back from the eastern side of the county are “generally in line with state averages,” Miskimins said. Well water from the western portion of the county is currently being tested, she noted, and once all the data is collected, representatives from UW-SP will give a presentation to the full county board.

Miskimins said about 35 people showed up to a recent groundwater informational meeting on the eastern side of the county, and many of them connected with county officials to explore options for conservation practices to protect their groundwater. She said the feedback from people turning in water samples has been “overwhelmingly positive.”

“People are really excited that the sampling is going on and the county is investing in this,” she said.

Other business

■ ■ The committee held a public hearing for a petition from the town of Plover, which is asking the county to amend its zoning code to allow shipping containers to be used as permanent storage structures in residential districts, as long as landowners obtain a conditional use permit. Four Plover residents, and one from McMillan, spoke in favor of the change, arguing that the shipping containers give residents another option for storing items that may otherwise be kept outside.

CPZ staff also shared comments from county-zoned towns, which would have to abide by the new zoning regulation if approved by the county board. Reactions to the proposal were mixed, with some town boards supporting the expanded usage of storage containers and others objecting based on concerns with the appearance and upkeep of the structures.

Committee members held a lengthy discussion about the pros and cons of shipping containers, but ultimately held off on making a recommendation so they could discuss it again in April.

■ ■ The committee recommended the acceptance of four different grants, including one from the DNR for $99,760 to help pay for new aerators on the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir. The other three grants, totaling $19,350, will support farmland conservation and phosphorus reduction efforts.

■ ■ Heidenreich said the county has not received much public feedback about its draft Farmland Preservation Plan, which needs to be updated by the end of the year.

“We’re going to assume that no news is good news,” she said, noting that the plan is a “very simple, non-controversial” proposal.