Spring 1999

THINK SPRING! I hope you are finding time to get outside and enjoy the lovely spring weather. This newsletter contains a reminder to celebrate Drinking Water Week the first week of May and updates on a number of activities related to the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments, as noted below. I strongly encourage you to read the article, "Why Do Wellhead Protection?", which documents the costs associated with well contamination.

1996 AMENDMENTS TO THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT

The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 brought great changes to the national drinking water program for water utilities, states and the EPA. The amendments provide:

1. New and stronger approaches to prevent contamination of drinking water;
2. Better information for consumers, including the "right to know";
3. Regulatory improvements, including better science, prioritization of effort, and risk assessment; and
4. New funding for states and communities through a Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.

As we implement these new changes, it is important for all of us to keep up with the latest information. This newsletter provides an update of activities underway to meet the requirements of the 1996 amendments, including wellhead protection, source water assessment, consumer confidence reports and capacity development. Note the availability of the "Safe Drinking Water Act: Pipeline to Cleaner Water" publication and sources for further information. The changes resulting from the 1996 amendments will help the EPA, states, and water systems prepare for future drinking water safety challenges and assure the sustainable availability of safe drinking water.

WHY DO WELLHEAD PROTECTION?

I am often asked why a community should develop a voluntary wellhead protection (WHP) plan. Communities are usually concerned that developing and implementing a wellhead protection plan is going to cost money and, as long as a community’s wells aren’t contaminated, what’s the big deal?

My response is that a wellhead protection plan may cost money. However, the cost of a WHP plan is insignificant compared to the cost of dealing with contamination of a well. If a well becomes contaminated, there may be substantial costs to a community. Those costs may include cleaning up groundwater, treating groundwater, drilling a new well, providing an alternate source of water to its residents or some combination of actions.

In an effort to document these costs, the Department recently conducted a survey to investigate the cost of groundwater contamination to municipal water supply systems. The survey, which complements an earlier one involving nitrate, requested information on costs incurred due to volatile (VOC) and semi-volatile (SOC) organic contamination of municipal supply wells. Thirty two of the 60 systems surveyed have responded to date. The following table summarizes the expenditures by general category. The number in parentheses is the number of communities pursuing that particular activity.

Based on an earlier Department survey, the total costs to remedy nitrate contamination in Wisconsin exceed $10.4 million dollars. For VOC contamination, the preliminary cost estimate is over $16 million. That averages out to about $500,000 for each of the 32 municipal systems that responded. These costs don’t address the public health risk from drinking contaminated water nor the negative impact on economic development resulting from a contaminated drinking water supply.

The substantial costs listed above to address groundwater contamination highlight the importance of wellhead protection. Wellhead protection offers communities the opportunity to minimize the risks associated with potential contamination sources and safeguard their water supply for the future. By knowing where the water is coming from and what potential contamination sources exist, efforts can be directed at those threats. A community can minimize the cost of wellhead protection planning by working with the Department, or for communities less than 10,000, the Wisconsin Rural Water Association. Contact me (Dave Lindorff) if you would like assistance with wellhead protection planning.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Department is working on two public service announcements to provide information on groundwater and encourage wellhead protection activities. We hope to have the public service announcements (PSAs) ready for broadcast on TV in May. Viewers will be asked to call an 800 number at the DNR for more information on groundwater and WHP.

The Department views this as one step in our efforts to facilitate implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments. The intent of the PSAs is to raise public awareness on groundwater issues. This will be beneficial in preparation for the first Consumer Confidence Reports due in October.

PUBLICATIONS

The Department is currently revising three groundwater and wellhead protection documents to make sure they are up to date. Contact me if interested in getting copies of any of these publications. The last two publications will be available on our WHP web site as well.

1. Groundwater - Wisconsin's Buried Treasure. This is an update of the 1989 publication that is intended for the general public. (available: August)

2. A Template for Preparing Wellhead Protection Plans for Municipal Wells. This revises the 1994 Department publication by Lee Boushon and provides step by step procedures for developing a WHP plan. (available: June)

3. A Guide for Conducting Potential Contaminant Source Inventories for Wellhead Protection. This revises the 1993 DNR publication by Jay Payton and provides guidance to communities interested in inventorying potential contaminant sources. (available: June)

WEB SITE

Over the past several months, the Department has greatly expanded the WHP web site (http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/dwg/gw/whp.htm) to include the text of the brochure, "Wellhead Protection - An Ounce of Prevention", a summary of Wisconsin's WHP program, an annotated list of publications, a contact list, example ordinances, past issues of the Wisconsin WHP Newsletter, and a list of available publications. In addition, the State of Wisconsin Wellhead Protection Program Plan can be downloaded. As noted above, two more publications will be added to our web site in June. Check it out, especially if you haven't visited it before.

INFORMATION AND ASSISTANCE

In January, I sent letters out to water utilities that had expressed interest in WHP during the vulnerability assessment process last year.

Approximately 230 communities checked the box indicating interest in developing a wellhead protection plan on the vulnerability assessment form they returned to the Department. In response to that interest, I sent out letters to those water utilities to find out what WHP information or assistance they needed. To date, we have received requests from 49 of those utilities. We have sent the utilities the information they requested and are currently following up with them to find out the timetable and circumstances of the utilities to help prioritize our WHP efforts. If you are interested in getting material on WHP, including example ordinances and plans, or would like assistance in developing a WHP plan, contact me and I'll be happy to help you.

SOURCE WATER ASSESSMENT PROGRAM UPDATE

The last two newsletters have contained information on Wisconsin's source water assessment program and have requested advice from you on different aspects of the program Wisconsin is preparing. I want to thank those of you who filled out the questionnaires. The information you provided was helpful in finalizing our program plan for the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The DNR submitted Wisconsin's Source Water Assessment Program Plan to EPA by the February 6th deadline. Wisconsin's proposed Program Plan is available at the Department’s web site: (http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/dwg/gw/swp.htm)

EPA has until November 6th to review, and approve or reject our plan. In the meantime, we will be coordinating efforts among the drinking water and groundwater program and various other programs to gather information needed to do the assessments. These efforts will include the vulnerability assessments to be completed for other-than-municipal (OTM) systems this summer. We will also be working to prevent duplication of efforts with those required by the Groundwater Rule which will be finalized late in 1999.

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

Capacity Development is a program required by the 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. The program is intended to ensure the technical, financial and managerial capacity of public water systems. As of September 1, 1999, all new community and non-transient non-community water systems must demonstrate that they have adequate capacity prior to construction of the water system.

What does this have to do with wellhead protection? As part of the evaluation of managerial capacity, utility rules and municipal ordinances are reviewed including: cross connection control, well abandonment, utility connection rules, and wellhead protection plans. A new municipal water system will not have adequate capacity unless it has a wellhead protection plan for its wells.

What about existing water systems? We are currently in the process of developing a Capacity Development strategy for insuring capacity at all of the existing public water systems. As part of this strategy, there will likely be a wellhead protection component. While the requirements for wellhead protection may not change, it is likely that the strategy will include giving systems credit for wellhead protection plans as part of the ranking system for the Safe Drinking Water Loan program.

A good wellhead protection plan is a vital part of your water system management. It should be integrated with your vulnerability assessments, your monitoring plan, your contingency planning, and ultimately your system capacity evaluation. Remember the best wellhead protection plans are the ones that are used!

Contact Lee Boushon, Bureau of Drinking Water and Groundwater, at 608-266-0857 for more information on Capacity Development.

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE REPORTS

As you may know, a series of half-day workshops, hosted by the Wisconsin Rural Water Association in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, are currently being held across the state. These workshops are intended to assist community public water supplies in creating Consumer Confidence Reports, which will be distributed to all their customers by October 1999. All of the nation's community public water systems will be required to provide these reports, which will provide information to their consumers about the condition of the water in their system. The reports are part of the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments passed by Congress. The main focus of the 1996 amendments is to give consumers more information on their drinking water and opportunities to get involved in protecting it.

The reports will include information on the source of the utility's drinking water, the treatment used to purify water, any contaminants that have been found in drinking water, and the potential health effects of those contaminants. Reports will also identify where additional information about the water supply can be found and how citizens can become involved in protecting water sources. After the initial report in October 1999, utilities must provide updated reports to their consumers annually. Generally, reports are required to be distributed to consumers by direct mail; however, in some cases, small utilities (systems that serve a population of less than 10,000) may be able publish their report in a local newspaper. Individuals not receiving reports or notice of its availability by early November 1999 can contact their local water provider for a copy.

For more information on the Safe Drinking Water Act, its amendments or Consumer Confidence Reports, visit the following web sites:

American Water Works Association @ http://www.awwa.org/ccrmain.htm

Environmental Protection Agency @ http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/sdwa/sdwa.html

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources @

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/dwg/index.htm

For information on Wisconsin's Consumer Confidence Reports program, contact Don Swailes, Bureau of Drinking Water and Groundwater, 608-266-7093.

Department of Natural Resources
P.O. Box 7921
Madison, WI 53707