Today citizens, local officials, and scientists gathered at Iverson park in Stevens Point to highlight the environmental and public health impacts of Wisconsin’s failure to adequately and fairly our water resources. Stevens Point is at the epicenter of the water withdrawals; this region has experienced lowered lake levels, the periodic drying of the Little Plover River, the disappearance of Long Lake, the death of the fisheries at Wolf and Pickerel Lakes and loss of recreational assets like the Wolf Lake beach. The Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter released white paper Water for All, Now and Into the Future, which looks at water supply concerns across Wisconsin.
“In Central Wisconsin, no issue has brought us together or divided us more than water issues have. The quality of our future depends on finding a reasonable balance across all sectors and purposes for water,” said Portage County Executive Patty Dreier.
Wisconsin water resources provide the cornerstone for much of Wisconsin’s economic engine and quality of life. Lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands host a broad range of recreational, hunting and fishing opportunities. Groundwater provides drinking water for about 70 percent of all Wisconsinites, while the rest rely on surface waters for drinking water.
Wisconsin is not living up to its water use goal to “Sustainably manage the quantity and quality of water in the state to ensure that water is available to be used to protect and improve our health, economy, and environment now and into the future.” Sierra Club’s Water Quantity in Wisconsin (May 2017) white paper highlights the threats of overconsumption of water resources in Wisconsin.
- In 2015, WI used over 2.04 trillion gallons, roughly the volume of three Lake Winnebagos
- Increasing concentrations of pollutants in drinking water due to groundwater over-pumping is putting thousands of Wisconsinites at risk
- Since 2000 there has been a six-fold increase in WI CAFO’s, which often require multiple high-capacity wells
- The sensitive Central Sands region is now home to over 3,000 high-capacity wells: in the 1950’s there were less than 100
- The Little Plover River was listed in 2013 as one of America’s 10 most endangered rivers
- 94,000 households in WI already have unsafe levels of nitrate in their drinking water
- Waukesha County found increasing radium levels in their drinking water as wells were drilled deeper to reach groundwater
Click here for the full factsheet