Communities balk at paying for water source research

By DARRYL ENRIQUEZ
denriquez@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Oct. 29, 2006

A proposal to map an emerging and important source of underground water for growing communities in southern Waukesha and northeast Walworth counties is meeting resistance because of the $44,000 cost that some municipal leaders argue they should not pay.

The communities of Waukesha, Mukwonago, Muskego and East Troy are being asked to each contribute $11,000 toward the production of a detailed map of an ancient river valley that is becoming a leading source of abundant and radium-free water.

The project is being pushed by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, but it received a halting response in East Troy last week when the Village Board tabled the agency's request for money.

Mukwonago Village President James Wagner said in an interview last week that the commission should pay for the study, since it would be of benefit to the area it represents.

"It sounds like a worthwhile study, and the water issue is a very real issue in Waukesha County," Wagner said. "Whether we agree with funding coming from the (communities), that's a different issue."

As communities struggle to dilute potentially cancer-causing radium from their drinking water, they are becoming increasingly dependent on a huge and shallow pool of clean underground water known as the Troy Bedrock Valley.

Waukesha, Muskego and Mukwonago already have sunk wells into the Troy aquifer, and plan to open more well sites. East Troy is drilling into the same aquifer because its old wells in a much deeper aquifer are failing.

Their moves into the Troy aquifer have created conflicts on emotional, political and legal levels. Lake property owners have fought in court East Troy's efforts to sink a well near the shores of Lake Beulah. In Waukesha, environmentalists and homeowners have fought back an effort to sink wells that could affect the Fox River and the Vernon Marsh Wildlife area.

Use of the shallow aquifer that lies 50 to 300 feet below the surface was traditionally confined to rural private wells because large water utilities took water from deep aquifers 1,000 or more feet below the surface.

As large communities with huge thirsts begin to stick their drinking straws into the shallow water source, rural homeowners, lake property owners and environmentalist are questioning the ramifications.

Dan Duchniak, manager of the Waukesha Water Utility, said the mapping, or "modeling project" as engineers call it, is needed to avoid damaging the aquifer that also is a source of water to lakes, rivers and streams.

"The Troy Bedrock has a limited amount of water available, but no one knows what the quantity is," Duchniak said. "This project would give us an idea. Water is becoming a more precious resource, and having ability to understand the impacts of wells by utilizing the model would be a good thing."

Duchniak said that if one of the four communities backs out, the project is dead.

The mapping model is actually being sought by consulting firms - Aquifer Science and Technology and Ruekert & Mielke - that work with the four communities to find solutions to their water needs, said Philip Evenson, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

The model would cover a 324-square-mile area and guide communities within that area in siting wells, analyzing the impact of groundwater pumping on connected lakes and rivers and defining areas that need protection, Evenson said.

The technical work would be done by Ruekert & Mielke.

"We believe that if we bring these communities together, they will better understand and be educated on what it is that's beneath them," Evenson said.