City-Times Staff

State leaders on Thursday heard testimony and public comment regarding a proposed bill which makes obtaining a high- capacity well permit easier for mega- dairies, frac sand mining companies and other large agribusiness. The proposal also shortens the amount of time the Dept. of Natural Resources has to approve high-capacity well permits.

Dr. George Kraft, professor of water resources at UWSP, was among those invited to testify before the Assembly Forestry and the Environment Committee. He said the hearing went on for about three hours before he had to leave to return to Stevens Point.

“And there were still several people waiting to speak,” Kraft said Thursday night. He estimated about sixty people were in attendance.

Kraft’s prepared remarks are seen below:

Prepared Remarks by Dr. George Kraft, UWSP Groundwater Specialist

Good afternoon, and thank you for all the work that you do.

I am appearing this morning for informational purposes only at the invitation of Rep. Danou.

I am also the director of the Center for Watershed Science and Education with the University of Wisconsin – Extension and the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point.  We are the folks who help your constituents ensure that they have safe drinking water from their private wells, help lake and stream groups with water quality concerns, and assist county conservation offices with water quality programs.  I am also a professor of water resources and  a licensed professional hydrologist.  I was privileged to work with Sen. Kedzie and Rep. Johnsrud during the drafting of groundwater legislation in 2003, and to work with the Joint Groundwater Work Group in the 2010 legislature.

In recent years I have been doing substantial work on how unmanaged groundwater pumping is drying lakes, streams, and wetlands in Wisconsin, particularly the central sands region.

I’d like to make three points in the brief time we have.

1.  Groundwater, lakes, and streams are connected.  Groundwater pumping affects water levels and lakes and streams.  Too much pumping can dry them.

2.  Pumping is already drying lakes, streams, and wetlands in parts of the state, most notably the central sands.  Explanations like climate change, a long period of drought, killer trees, and the like don’t hold water.

3.  This bill rolls back very modest protections to lakes and streams to the provisions passed in 2004, which don’t really protect any lake, stream, and wetland from the impacts of pumping.  If it did, obviously we wouldn’t be having the lake and stream drying we are experiencing today.

1.  Groundwater, lakes, and streams are connected.  Groundwater pumping affects water levels and lakes and streams.  Too much pumping can dry them.

The cartoon below shows how groundwater works in a simple system that predominates much of Wisconsin.  More complicated systems occur especially in the eastern part of the state, but the principles are largely the same.

Some of the rain on the earth’s surface percolates through the soil, fills the aquifer, and becomes groundwater.  Groundwater isn’t stagnant, but rather moves from place higher on the landscape usually to streams where it discharges.  Groundwater may travel a few feet to a few tens of miles in the aquifer before it discharges.  If groundwater encounters a depression in the earth’s surface, it fills it, creating lakes or wetlands.

When we pump groundwater, we always always always lower water levels somewhere, and divert water out of streams somewhere.  When we pump a little, we have a small effect, when we pump a lot we have a large effect.  One thing to keep in mind when looking at this cartoon, it really doesn’t matter how thick the aquifer is, whether the aquifer is 20 feet or 100 feet thick, drying up the top few feet dries lakes and streams

2.  The central sands situation.

The central sands region of Wisconsin has the most prominent groundwater impacts because, (1) like in much of Wisconsin, lakes, streams, and groundwater are well connected and fed by groundwater, and (2) because of the huge amount of pumping that goes on in the central sands.  Expect to see more central sands situations as huge new amounts of new unmanaged groundwater pumping go in around the state.

There are some 2000 high capacity wells in central Wisconsin that pump billions of gallons of water each year – 50 billion in 2011, and 80 billion in 2012.  Pumping in just three of the central sands counties accounted for a third of all the water pumped in the state in 2012.  Most of that water was used for irrigation.  In 2012 an average of over a foot of water was pumped out of the ground and applied to each irrigated acre.

This pumping has had huge drying effects.  Dozens of lakes and wetlands have had their water levels go down, and dozens of headwater streams are flow impacted.  Some wetlands have become dry land, shallower lakes are turning into wetlands, deeper lakes are turning into shallower lakes with losses of navigability and habitat.  The county beach at Wolf Lake has been unusable for getting close to a decade.  Public hunting and fishing land, paid for by the license fees of sportsmen are losing value.  Boat landings on lakes sit high and dry.   This is not a one or two water body thing.   It is widespread and increasing.

The science of these pumping impacts is well known. Studies in the central sands going back 50 years predicted this, and more recent studies have confirmed the predictions.  Other causes like killer trees, magic clay layers, climate change, and drought have been found lacking.  Supposed cures like new nozzles, irrigation scheduling, and damming streams have been looked at by hydrologists and found wanting.

3.  Effects of AB 679.

The effect of AB 679 is to undo the modest protections for surface waters and private wells that were gained in the Beulah case through the state constitution and state Supreme Court in a unanimous decision.  Without going into too many details, it goes back to a strict statutory approval scheme passed in 2003 Act 310.  I worked through the legislative process with Sen. Kedzie, Rep. Johnsrud, and their staffs.  It was recognized that the legislation and the statutory changes would accomplish little, but was a “first good step.”  So the legislation offers no protections to 99% of lakes, any wetland, and 87% of streams.  And the protections offered to even “protected” streams are easily circumvented, so no water body is truly protected.

The problem is we never figured out the second good step.  So here we sit in 2014 debating whether to withdraw modest protections, and by any anyone’s definition, they are modest, and return to a standard where anyone can pump any amount of groundwater and individually or with other pumpers dry up any lake or stream in the state.

I understand you have a tough choice to make.  Some of you may honestly believe that pumping water for agriculture and other uses takes precedence over lakes and streams.  As one Senator I know said, I’m sorry about this, but lakes are collateral damage.  Others are troubled and think about the pumping economy vs the economy of lakes and fishing and tourism, or the values of property on lakes, or the property tax dollars generated around lakes.

Good luck!   But may I let you know that Wisconsin has in Extension, the rest of the University, and in the private sector some of the finest hydrologists in the world ready to assist you in your decision making.  If you want, come on out for a tour of the pumping impacted region and see for yourself the dry wetlands, shrunken lakes, and dry boat landings.

I thank you for your invitation to address you today.