Defender
PROTECTING OUR ASSETS The shifting landscape of groundwater regulation, and what’s being done to protect our water By Elizabeth Wheeler & Amber Meyer Smith
Fall 2014
W
wejoinbelieve everyone us: deserves clean water and clean air
hen Wisconsin’s first groundwater law was passed in 2004, the authors believed that it was just the first step. But little has improved since then, and much is at stake. Our current groundwater law leaves most of our lakes, rivers, streams, springs and wetlands unprotected from the devastating impacts from over-pumping of groundwater. Yet, Wisconsin still hasn’t taken the next step to strengthen groundwater protections. In fact, decisionmakers keep trying to roll them back. The problems in Central Wisconsin are certainly the most critical, with the Little Plover River being designated as one of American Rivers’ “Most Endangered Rivers” in 2013. But did you know that Brown, Dane, St. Croix and Waukesha counties have groundwater problems? The rise of high-capacity wells associated with the water-intensive frac sand mining industry is causing additional stress on our waters. Citizens are demanding action and trying to prevent their favorite lakes, trout streams and paddling rivers from drying up. But the Legislature has refused to take action and has even recently tried rolling back some of the protection we do have for our waters. What happens when the Legislature ignores the problems or tries to make it worse? Citizens take their case to the courts, and increasingly that is where protections for our precious groundwater resources are being added.
What’s happened in the courts
Two substantial decisions from administrative courts in September represent a huge win for groundwater protections in Wisconsin. The decisions in the Richfield Dairy and New Chester Dairy cases both relate to the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) authority to regulate high-capacity wells. The combined effect of the two decisions is that DNR now has a broad authority to give greater scrutiny and require additional monitoring for applications for new high capacity well approvals. As a note, both dairies are owned by Milk Source Holdings, Inc., the largest dairy operator in Wisconsin. In Adams County, Richfield Dairy’s high-capacity well approval was challenged by Family Farm Defenders and the Pleasant Lake Management District, which alleged that DNR did not consider the cumulative impacts of the proposed wells. For years, groups
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Analysis: Wisconsin can meet an even stronger carbon pollution standard By Clean Wisconsin Staff
Also in this issue
“Wisconsin is well-positioned to comply with the Clean Power Plan and has the technical and economic potential to exceed its requirements.” This is the conclusion of an analysis conducted by Clean Wisconsin’s science and research team, which found that many utilities in the state are already well on their way to achieving the 18.6% reduction in total carbon pollution emissions required by the rules. The Clean Power Plan is made up of four building blocks that, taken together, will help states meet their targets, as the EPA has set these targets based on each state’s potential under the different building blocks. Clean Wisconsin took a look at the assumptions EPA made in determining its goal for Wisconsin. The following is the breakdown of how Wisconsin can fare in each category.
More Efficient Power Plants
The first building block looks at the potential to improve how efficiently existing coal plants operate to get more electricity out of each unit of coal burned. The EPA proposal estimates that, on average, each continued on page 9
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