Town of Emerald hears from county planner regarding water testing

By Cara L. Dempski

EMERALD — Contaminated groundwater can move hundreds of feet per day through the kind of bedrock located in the Town of Emerald.

St. Croix County planner Tammy Wittmer attended the Town of Emerald’s most recent board meeting to discuss continuing concerns over well water safety in the area surrounding Emerald Sky Dairy.

There were between 10 and 12 town residents at the June 14 meeting.

The discussion comes after a December 2016 manure spill was not brought to the attention of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources until April 2017. Livestock manure spills can cause increased nitrate levels and bacterial contamination in the local wells and aquifers.

The water at the Emerald town hall was tested earlier this year, and the nitrate level then was 26.8 parts per million. That level is nearly nine times the three parts per million considered to be naturally occurring and safe to drink. The United States Environmental Protection agency standard for drinking water is 10 ppm, but notes any higher levels can be harmful to both people and animals.

Infants, pregnant women, and the elderly are susceptible to health problems stemming from high nitrate levels that range from an inability to maintain adequate oxygen in blood to spontaneous miscarriages.

Wittmer’s presentation

The St. Croix County planner spoke about the county’s karst landscape and how it impacts the speed and distance of underground water flow. She presented board members and assembled town residents with a map detailing the areas of Wisconsin that are predominantly karst, or carbonate rock that is susceptible to water erosion and fissures.

Such a landscape can be a minefield of underground cracks and caverns that allows for water to move tens to hundreds of feet per day. Additionally, information gathered from the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey indicates carbonate rocks are poor at filtering contaminants.

The map indicates karst can be found at depths between zero and 50 feet in the area surrounding the Emerald town hall and the Emerald Sky Dairy, a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), currently housing approximately 2,500 dairy cattle.

The state DNR requires 180 days of available manure storage as part of the requirement for receiving a Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination permit. All CAFOs are required to have the permit, the same kind issued to cities and villages boasting wastewater treatment facilities. Most newer CAFOs go above the mandated 180 days, and some also have warning systems on their manure storage lagoons, so CAFO operators are alerted to any problems.

A spill like the DNR investigated in April is cause for concern in an area like the one surrounding the dairy and town hall because of the rock’s inability to filter contaminants. There have been several instances in the past two years where private landowners have reported well contamination with coliform bacteria and nitrates.

Wittmer provided a graphic representation of the rock formation and well depth at the Emerald town hall as an example of what most well construction looks like in St. Croix County. The graphic indicated the town hall has a 240-foot well.

The first 102 feet of the well’s drill hole goes through clay before it meets a layer of limestone bedrock. The encased portion of the drill hole, which protects the water from contaminants, is 105 feet long, and extends only three feet into the limestone bed. The water pump was is at 180 feet, which is 30 feet below the water level.

Town Supervisor Fran Klatt asked Wittmer why the well was only encased for the first three feet of bedrock, and she responded it was likely the way the well construction crew who dug the well was trained to do things. Fellow supervisor Tom Wink later asked if wells would be safer if they were encased further into the bedrock, and Wittmer answered she believed they would be.

That provides small comfort for those in the township whose wells have already tested high for nitrates or E. coli.

Klatt and Wink threw around estimates of approximately $10,000 to have an existing well fully encased, while Wittmer said a new, fully encased well could cost a homeowner upwards of $25,000.

“We’re kind of the head of the watershed here,” Wittmer said. “Unfortunately, once we’ve contaminated our water, it’s hard to go back.”

The St. Croix County planner expanded on her statement, saying the vast majority of the county’s water appears to flow toward the local west-running streams and rivers. One audience member did mention an exception to the statement, telling Wittmer water drained from near New Richmond was dyed before it was drained a few years ago, and the dye was later discovered in the water of the man-made lake at Spring Valley’s earthen dam.

Spring Valley is south, southeast of New Richmond, which is counter to Wittmer’s indicated water flow direction.

Testing the water

One town resident attending the meeting informed the board he has tested his water fairly regularly, and has yet to see a negative result despite living in close proximity to the dairy. Klatt indicated he has tested his well at least yearly as well, and he lives just over a mile away from Emerald Sky.

A second water test taken at the Emerald town hall earlier this year indicated the nitrate level had decreased to 19.1 ppm, but was taken after the well had been running for half a day. Previous articles on this matter indicate the water nitrates were 6.9 ppm when the well was drilled just 10 years ago.

Barb Nelson, a long-time resident of the Town of Emerald, was the person who initially asked Wittmer to attend a town board meeting after several wells reported contamination. She asked those present at the meeting to spread the word that any well contaminations should be reported to St. Croix County Public Health.

Wittmer recommended the town continue testing the well at the hall, and that residents continue to test their water regularly, though she knows the speed at which the underground water moves means any possible contamination can be there one day and gone the next.

“My family got sick over a weekend, and maybe if we had tested that Friday night, we might not have (gotten sick),” Wittmer said.

Emerald Sky Dairy

The town board’s long-standing agenda item regarding Emerald Sky’s conditional use permit and addendum application was not addressed at the meeting, as there were no updates available from the county.

The item has been part of the town’s agenda since the dairy applied for an expansion allowing up to 6,289 dairy cows in 2016. As of April, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was still waiting for the operation to submit its final application materials before it could begin processing the request and make any decisions.