By
Senator Kathleen Vinehout
What if you woke up one morning turned on the faucet to wash your face and saw brown water coming out of your tap?
Stacy Sylla of rural Lincoln Township in Trempealeau County texted me just such a photo of water the color of sludge. She has gone through three washing machines, dug fistfuls of sand out of the tank of her toilet, and bought an expensive water-filtering device. Her horse, Apples, died of exposure to toxins and pollutants found in her water.
The likely cause of the well problems? A new sand mine just over a half a mile away from Stacy and Mike Sylla’s farm.
Local residents opposed the sand mine. In order to get the mine approved, the cities of Independence and Whitehall annexed land miles from the original city borders. This end-around of the township government left residents with little say about what happens in their neighborhood.
Stacy testified against the mine. She heard from a city council member that, “It’s not affecting my house.” She later told me, “I feel like the state has failed to protect the people.”
Town officials tried to stop the annexation and tried to work with the mine to no avail. The town received many reports of water problems evidently caused by the mine pumping more than the local aquifer could handle.
The story Stacy shared with me became a part of the debate on a high capacity well bill that fortunately failed to pass the Legislature last spring.
The Syllas and their neighbors did receive a bit of a reprieve with cleaner well water when low gas prices resulted in less hydraulic fracturing, and consequently less need for sand. The mine ceased activity and the water in the neighborhood started to clear up.
But this spring both the brown water and the high capacity well bill are back. Last month sand mining started up again. Stacy and Mike are hauling water for their livestock, buying water for cooking and drinking. Now they wonder if bathing in brown water is a health risk.
The sand mine doesn’t appear to take any responsibility for the problem. However, Mike Sylla recently told the Trempealeau County Times, “One day they started blasting and it wasn’t long before our water went bad.”
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) also does not appear to be taking any responsibility. My office was told the state “didn’t have regulatory authority” and the Sylla’s should “test their water.”
With a lack of state action, the Trempealeau County Board started a program of well testing. Toxins released in the water are expensive to detect. The county will pick up most of the cost of the water testing. Information and test kits are available through the Trempealeau County Extension office.
Meanwhile a bill to make matters worse for neighbors with bad wells is moving through the Legislature. Senate Bill 76 would give a high capacity well owner access to water in perpetuity. Currently, the DNR reviews permits and any issues related to the permit when a well owner replaces, upgrades, transfers or replaces a high capacity well.
There is no other system for a regular “check-up” to make sure local wells and waterways are not harmed by the removal of water through the high capacity well. During the Senate debate, my colleagues and I tried to add commonsense “check-ups” for high capacity wells such as a review every ten years or when there is a change in usage (from agriculture to sand mining), and when considering approval of a large number of new wells in the vicinity. All of these amendments were defeated.
Senate Bill 76 recently passed the Senate on a partisan vote. The Assembly may take up the bill as soon as the beginning of May.
Our state Constitution Public Trust Doctrine sets out that Wisconsin’s waters belong to all Wisconsin residents. Senate Bill 76 takes the state in another direction – the one with the biggest straw gets the most water.
State action to pass this bill will make matters worse for the Sylla’s and their neighbors. I urge my colleagues in the Assembly to stop this bill. We need commonsense solutions that allow access to clean water for all Wisconsin residents.
Memberships
More Like This:
The Next Well that Goes Bad May be Yours
Image
March 23, 2016
The Next Well that Goes Bad May be Yours
by
Senator Kathleen Vinehout
“I feel like the state failed to protect the people,” Stacy told me. “Nobody really cares because it’s not affecting them.”
Stacy is one of several Lincoln Township residents in Trempealeau County who lived through two years of well problems. An industrial sand mine and processing plant set up shop in the neighborhood.
Mine owners wanted to avoid county zoning rules. The owners negotiated with the cities of Whitehall and Independence – some say pitting one city against the other – to annex the mine into Whitehall and the processing plant into Independence.
The residents of Lincoln Township were left out. They had no voice in the rules placed on the mine and processing plant by the City Councils.
The mine negotiated with Whitehall to provide water for sand processing. Industrial sand mine processing is a very water intensive process. The city’s pipes were unable to handle the high pressure needed to pump water miles away to the mine. Residents told me the city tried to drill a well just for the mine but couldn’t find water.
The mine needed water to operate. Locals said the mine made a deal to use an old nearby agriculture irrigation high capacity well to supply water to the sand processing plant.
Water use escalated. By 2015, three and a half times the water was removed from the agriculture well compared to 2013. Almost immediately after the mine began operation, residents experienced problems. Neighbor’s water pressure dropped dramatically during blasting; a well went dry; water filters normally changed every 30 years had to be changed every two or three months; chicken watering devises clogged with sand; chickens died and heavy metals appeared in drinking water.
As one local county board supervisor told me, “There was a clear connection between well degradation and sand mine activity.”
Stacy lives about a half mile from the mine. She sent me photos of her water, which was a murky brownish orange, and photos of her scooping handfuls of sand out of her toilet tank. She has gone through three or four washing machines in the past few years.
But the worst came in January. Stacy lost Apples, her horse. Stacy said, “I took it very bad.”
Apples died of liver failure. The horse had heavy metals in his tissues. Stacy told me the metals were “too much for his body. He can’t process or get rid of it.” Her vet said her water “was the worst water he’d ever seen.”
County officials started a well testing program. They contacted the state and asked if conditions of the farm well permit used by the mine were violated. When the county couldn’t get answers they called me.
Ironically, the Senate was considering a bill to change high capacity well laws. The bill would have made permanent – unless a court took action – every high capacity well in the state.
During the Senate debate, I asked colleagues to support amendments to review well permits when there is a change in use, i.e. from agriculture to mining; when there is a dramatic increase in the water removed, and when water is piped away from the property. Had these requirements already been law the locals might still have good wells. The Senate majority voted down all my amendments.
GOP Senators did pass a bill that differed from the bill passed by the Assembly. This means, unless the Assembly comes back to act on the bill, it will die.
The high capacity well law does need to change. Residents in Lincoln Township and across the state are vulnerable.
Mine operations in Stacy’s neighborhood are winding down. But local news reports a mine annexed into the nearby City of Blair will soon begin operations. I talked with a Whitehall business owner, Linda Mossman, who worries Blair residents will soon face similar troubles.
She asked me to encourage residents to act now by measuring the depth of wells to document – through video or photos – their foundations and to use the well water-testing program available through the county extension office. For under $30, residents can get a comprehensive water test that usually runs about $100.
“People need to know,” Linda told me, “This WILL happen in your neighborhood.”
Steve Hanson
About
Steve is a member of LION Publishers , the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce, the Online News Association, and the Local Media Consortium, and is active in Health Dunn Right.
He has been a computer guy most of his life but has published a political blog, a discussion website, and now Eye On Dunn County.
Add new comment