Sourcewater
WRWA’s Source Water protection program began in July 2004. Funded through the USDA Farm Service Agency, it provides protection planning and technical assistance to communities throughout Wisconsin. Source water protection plans focus on protecting community drinking water supplies on a multijurisdictional basis. Source water protection plans can focus on a region working together or a municipality and its immediate neighboring townships to help safeguard drinking water sources. All services are provided at no cost.
This program also provides technical assistance to communities and systems having issues regarding their source water, contamination sources, protection ordinances, and other related issues. See the below documents for more information.
-Source Water Protection Program Brochure
-Questions and Answers on Source Water Protection Plans
What is Source Water?
Source Water is the natural origin of the water we use on a daily basis. Source Water can be any water body, whether it is a spring, groundwater, or surface water that is used for drinking water, whether it is a private well or a Public Water System (PWS). "Public Water System" means a system for the provision to the public of piped water for human consumption, if such a system has at least 15 service connections or regularly serves an average of at least 25 individuals daily at least 60 days out of the year.
There are four classifications of Public Water Systems; Community Municipal Systems, Community Non- Municipal Systems (Other Than Municipal –OTM), Non-Transient Non-Community, and Transient Non-Community. See Appendix A for flow chart of different types of public water systems.
Why Source Water Protection?
The benefits to a community protecting their drinking water supplies might best be understood by describing the costs of failing to protect them. These costs include those that are relatively easy to quantify in monetary or economic terms and those that are not. Easily quantifiable costs of drinking water supply contamination include:
• Treatment and/or remediation prior to distribution.
• Finding and developing new supplies and/or providing emergency replacement water.
• Abandoning a drinking water supply due to contamination.
• Paying for consulting services and staff time.
• Litigating against responsible parties.
• Conducting public information campaigns when incidents arouse public and media interest in source water pollution.
• Meeting the regulations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, such as the disinfection byproduct rule and monitoring requirements.
• Loss of property value and/or tax revenue.
• Loss of revenue from tourism opportunities.
Costs that are not easily quantifiable include:
• Health related costs from exposure to contaminated water.
• Lost production of individuals and businesses, interruption of fire protection, loss of economic development opportunities.
• Lack of community acceptance of treated drinking water.
The 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) required that each state conduct a source water assessment (SWAP) on every public water supply within the state. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has performed these assessments. This plan utilizes the information provided in these assessments, expands on it, when need be, and establishes a management plan for protecting the community’s source water.
Source Water Protection is a voluntary program implemented at the local level. Source Water Protection will help protect this resource from contamination by monitoring land use that occurs within the area overlying the sources from which wells draw water.
Many materials such as pesticides, fertilizers, organic chemicals, and human and animal wastes can contaminate groundwater. The degree of contamination is contingent on many factors including; soil characteristics, volume of contaminant, contaminant’s chemical properties, climate, and groundwater flow. Once groundwater becomes contaminated it is difficult and expensive to clean up. A public water system that is supplied by a source that has become contaminated will probably to do additional monitoring and may need to install water treatment equipment or find a new source of drinking water. The most cost-effective approach is to prevent contamination before it occurs, rather than attempting to remedy contamination problems after they have occurred. A Source Water Protection Plan identifies water system vulnerabilities and enumerates techniques to manage potentially contaminating land uses.
