Source Water Assessment Program

Assessment Results

Source water assessments provide a description of the assessment process, a map of the source water area and significant potential contaminant sources, and a determination of susceptibility for each public drinking water system.

Release of Source Water Assessments for
Groundwater Systems
Prior to heightened national and statewide security levels due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 the Wisconsin DNR had planned to make all of the completed source water assessments available to the public on the Internet. Immediately after that date the WDNR determined that public well locations are sensitive information and stopped providing them to the public without approval of a written information request. Source water assessments contain maps showing well locations and so are provided only to respective water utilities and DNR staff. Water utility managers are encouraged to use discretion in releasing sensitive information, such as well locations. Upon completion, brief summaries of groundwater source water assessments will be available in a community's consumer confidence report and at the WDNR's Source Water Assessment Program webpage. Find an assessment summary for a groundwater system

The Wisconsin DNR is currently working to complete assessments for the approximately 11,000 groundwater public drinking water systems. Paper copies of complete assessments for municipal systems are being hand-delivered to system operators. Assessments for non-municipal public water systems will be available upon request.
Assessments for groundwater public drinking water systems are being completed as follows:

Assessments are scheduled to be completed and delivered to municipal systems by the end of 2003. Click here to find brief summaries of these assessments.
Assessments for smaller systems should be completed by the end of 2004. Brief summaries of these assessments will be available on this webpage.

Release of Source Water Assessments for
Surface Water Systems
Source water assessments for surface water systems are largely unaffected by increased security concerns. This is because of the much larger scale maps provided in surface source water assessments. Intake locations are not shown in the assessments. The assessments in their entirety have been provided to water utilities, local libraries and interested parties. Click here to find complete assessments for surface water systems.

DNR staff will be available to explain the assessment process and results when needed. However, after the assessment is completed and provided to the water systems we will direct inquiries to the systems in order to give them a sense of citizen interest. This community interest will be the basis for source water protection efforts undertaken by the community or system.

Back to Source Water Assessment Program

Last Revised: Wednesday January 02 2008