“Having high nitrates in water ….
“Having high nitrates in water is typically what is most concerning to women and children, so it’s frequently targeted,” she said.
A map of nitrate levels in Marathon County shows several areas where the contaminant is at unsafe drinking levels or getting close, but much of the county is considered a “data desert” where “we really don’t know what’s going on,” Heindenreich said.
Atrazine, an herbicide used when growing potatoes and corn, frequently seeps into the groundwater supply, but Heindenreich called it a “sleeping giant” in Marathon County because so much attention is usually paid to nitrates and bacteria. She said CPZ contacted a hydrogeologist at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection, who is “very concerned about the lack of testing” for atrazine in Marathon County.
“We know this is a problem in our county, and we already have two atrazine prohibition areas,” she said, noting that neighboring Portage County is almost completely off-limits to the chemical.
Heindenreich said 1,000 well samples “seems like a big number,” but with 40 townships in Marathon County, that adds up to only 25 tests per township. She said CPZ plans to push for 250 tests at roughly the same time, twice a year, over the next two years. WEAL has told the department that 1,000 tests is the minimum number to be considered valid, she noted.
CPZ envisions a countywide community outreach effort, she said, with meetings in convenient locations for rural residents to attend and get information about well testing. The first step is to form a work group with representatives from throughout the area to identify the highest risks and formulate the outreach plan, Heindenreich said.
The total cost of collecting the well data and updating the groundwater protection plan is estimated to be $275,000. CPZ is working with UW-Extension to apply for a grant that would help with bacteria and nitrate testing on farmsteads with high numbers of immigrant workers.
CPZ is also proposing that the county draw the money from its Environmental Impact Fund, which was formed in 2004 as part of an agreement with the American Transmission Company when the company ran its Arrowhead-Weston transmission line across county land.
CPZ director Laurie Miskimins said the fund was started with a $1.6 million one-time payment from ATC, which continues to contribute about $60,000 per year for the depreciated value of county land. By state statute, the money must go towards environmental projects.
About $550,000 of unallocated funds is currently available, Miskimins stated. County board chairman Kurt Gibbs asked if CPZ would be doing any “spot checking” in the rural areas for PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances), which have drawn a lot of attention in recent years.
Miskimins said only two labs in Wisconsin test for PFAS, and the rate is $500 per test, compared to the $150 tests being done as part of the protection plan update. Heindenreich said the testing experts at WEAL have said that “it is extremely rare to deal with PFAS in private wells,” and have discouraged CPZ from spending a lot of money on testing for them.
The Wisconsin DNR has tested a few wells in the county for PFAS, Heindenreich said, but she does not think it’s cost-effective to do that many more tests.
Committee chairman John Robinson said he said he supports CPZ’s proposal, but “it will not answer all of the questions relative to groundwater.” He said more attention needs to be paid to other contaminants and also to the quantity of water available, especially in the western part of the county, where municipalities struggle to find new wells.
Heindenreich said updating the groundwater protection plan fulfills one of the objectives in the county’s strategic plan, to “protect and enhance the quantity and quality of potable groundwater and surface water supplies.”
“Without your support in this area, there is no way to meet this objective,” she told county supervisors.
Other business
n The committee denied all but one request for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, several of which were recently brought before the committee. One of the denied requests came from the village of Stratford, which asked for $500,000 to help reconstruct three local streets. Committee members said ARPA funding is supposed to go toward projects that would normally fall under the county’s purview, and they did not feel like most of the proposals met this criteria.
The one proposal that was not rejected outright came from the Wausau Radio Controlled Aviation Club, which is seeking $133,387 to extend 200-amp electricity and water to the club’s airfield at Sunnyvale Park in Wausau. Since the proposal involved a county park, committee members thought some funding could be provided.
n At the request of supervisor Yee Leng Xiong, the committee voted to add two objectives to the county’s strategic plan, taken from the Greater Wausau Area Partnership. The objectives are to “embrace the Hmong community and explore links to St. Paul, Minn.,” and “target remote workers as a segment of the workforce for relocation to the Wausau region.”
n The committee approved a budget transfer for a $3,500 federal grant to be used for cold weather clothing for the sheriff’s department SWAT team.
