Saratoga Man Blasts Groundwater Extraction Bill Gutting Water Protection

Republican bill would inflict damage onto rural communities and small businesses
Draining water would result in plummeting property values, new houses will not be built. Anybody that can move out, will move out.

Before the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy Regarding Senate Bill 291

Testimony of Bruce E. Dimick
The Town of Saratoga

October 13, 2015

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.  My name is Bruce Dimick; I am from the Town of Saratoga Wisconsin, and am a member of the Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors organization. I have read SB 291 and was pleased by some aspects of the bill, but troubled by others.  

One of those problem areas is the method used to identify a Sensitive Resource Area (SRA). I was a member of Representative Krug’s Citizen Advisory Groundwater Group when language similar to what is found in SB 291 was presented by Representative Krug with respect to Sensitive Resource Areas. I forcefully argued against this convoluted approach then, and I do so again today. To my knowledge, no one on the committee endorsed this approach, although many of us were in favor of the concept of Sensitive Resource Areas, or carve-outs.

Approval for a Sensitive Resource Area designation would, according to some estimates, take at least 10 years, during which any high-capacity wells that are approved for an area would be allowed to operate. By the time the SRA designation could be achieved much of the damage would already be done. Why work reactively when a proactive approach makes so much more sense both environmentally and economically?

In order to really understand the hydrogeology of an area like the Central Sands, you almost have to live there for a number of years, especially if you are from a more typical clay-loam environment.  We raised our family north of Appleton in the heart of dairy country during the ‘70’s and 80’s. This was typical clay-loam country like the country I grew up on in Northeastern Ohio. When we eventually moved to Saratoga, with its almost total lack of topsoil and all sand it took some getting used to. Without spray irrigation, our area is good for growing pine trees, but not much else.

One way to conceptualize the Central Sands area is think of it as a big tub full of sand filled almost to the top with water. All the water is connected. Streams, lakes and ponds are merely reflecting the local water table. As an example, we have a small dug pond on our property that has no typical inlet or outlet. Yet it is full of clean water and fish year round.  The ground water flows through our pond, slowly but continually, on its way to the Wisconsin River via one or more of the trout streams in the area.

The Central Sands area has been the subject of countless hydro geological studies done by the UWSP as well as the USGS and has already been identified as an environmentally sensitive region. The sensitivity of this aquifer is well documented, including a 2003 designation by the state legislature when groundwater management areas were identified.

The SRA designation should be made by the legislature proactively, now, just as it was in 2003 when groundwater management areas were identified. 

If the entirety of the Central Sands area were designated as an SRA up front, then that would be a great improvement to this Bill.

I would ask the committee to go through a likely scenario for the Town of Saratoga if this bill is passed without modification. Saratoga home owners and small business’s are already being stressed by the threat that the aquifer supplying the residents of the town will be severely damaged. Housing prices have already plummeted, some by as much as 40-50%, and that is if you are lucky enough to sell your home. We are all dependent on private wells. The two wells on my property are 12’ sandpoints and our water tests unbelievably clean.

So if SB 291 becomes law without modification, and the Wysocki Family of Companies sinks their proposed 33 high capacity wells and lowers the water table as expected, many residents will have to construct new deeper wells.  And by the way, deeper does not always mean better. In areas like ours, the best water is frequently found near the top. Sand is a great filter.

Property values will continue to deteriorate and new houses will not be built in our rural residential community. Anybody that can move out, will move out. Perhaps a few hearty souls would prevail and eventually Saratoga and surrounding areas would be designated as an SRA after 7-10 years. The chances at that point of actually shutting down Wysocki’s 33 high capacity wells seems remote at best.

The damage will have been done and a rural community and its small businesses will suffer.

Scott Krug's Betrayal—Sponsors Bill to Plunder Groundwater

Increasing opposition to a proposed massive CAFO in Wood
County in central Wisconsin spurs State Rep. Scott Krug (R)
to lie he has support of clean water advocates for legislation
he is co-sponsoring in the state assembly. Krug's bill would
facilitate the permitting of high capacity water wells drawing
100,000 gallons of groundwater per day and used by CAFOs
to create pathogen-laden liquid cow manure that is dumped
into the environment.
.
- Photo by Mary Captain-Braund

State Rep. Scott Krug Lies Again, Con Job in Central Wisconsin on High Capacity Groundwater Wells

Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature are fast-tracking a bill to give away Wisconsin groundwater to special interests who donated $ millions to Scott Walker and other Republicans (Wisconsin Democracy Campaign).

The legislation is Senate Bill 291.

The bill is being sold as a compromise bill (with Senate Bill 239) though this is the Republican political strategy, known for months by environmental activists and acknowledged in a September 9 email (obtained here) by State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa) in which Krug says, "The compromise bill that I have been working on will be released this month and will do many good things for the Central Sands area."

SB 291 is the end game of Republican strategy to pose as protectors of groundwater while directing the newly polluter-friendly Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) to expedite permits for high-capacity wells drawing more than 100,000 gallons of groundwater a day.

Krug's spin is reported in a largely uncritical piece by Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on October 9.

The water is used by industrialized agriculture (Concentrated (Confined) Agricultural Feeding Operations) and other large industrialized agricultural corporations combining the water with cow manure and sending back into the environment millions of gallons of liquid and aerialized cow manure with often tragic health and environmental consequences.

Among the environmental consequences are drying up of rivers, streams and lakes, creation of dead zones in lakes, Ecoli poisoning and destruction of trout streams to list a few.

Krug is the sponsor of SB 291 in the state assembly.

State Rep. Scott Krug Lied

Krug misrepresented the views of his own constituents and clean water advocates when he wrote in another email written earlier this month (obtained here), "This bill was crafted with a great deal of input from local stakeholders. My Citizen Advisory Groundwater Group generated many of the concepts within the bill including private well protections, determination of the most vulnerable areas, monitoring requirements, and (on both sides) the need to determine rates of flow and lake level requirements to use science to maintain the public trust."

This falsehood is typical of Krug whose "Citizen Advisory Groundwater Group" is widely regarded in Adams and Wood counties as a ploy, a series of meetings often skipped by Krug and at which Krug never took notes or minutes (Dimick, Wisconsin Rapidly Daily Tribune) (Mal Contends).

Groundwater group members say they oppose SB 291, and Krug's use of the committee for political posturing.

"Krug was getting a high degree of political mileage by hosting this committee. He referred to it constantly in his public letters," writes Bruce Dimick in a column last year in the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune.

In the October 2015 email, responses to Krug include the two emails below from angry clean water advocates in Wood County:

As you are fully aware, the massive amounts of water used by high capacity wells to our east have all but dried up the water that used to fill and refresh OUR lakes. Let alone the fact that we all know that our ground water supplies are dwindling faster than they are being replenished.

Knowing this I can’t imagine that you co-sponsored bill SB 291. In fact, I assume this is an error and should have said that you not only didn’t co-sponsor the bill but that you oppose it, correct?

And:

I feel that Krug is really politicking (to perhaps uninformed individuals) that this was a combined effort of engaged stakeholders through the Advisory Group and that members of the group shared no concerns about the proposed bill. I think that it may be appropriate to clarify via emails and social media outlets that members of the Advisory Group do not support the bill. Many of our extended email group will remember that we had PWC (Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors (Rome, Grand Rapids, Port Edwards, Nekoosa, Saratoga, Wisconsin Rapids)) representation on the group Krug mentions and may by default think that we support it because Krug says the Advisory Group had input. (emphasis added) 

Krug is a political ally of James Wysocki, a CAFO owner and the owner of the site of another massive proposed CAFO in the town of Saratoga in Wood County. Wysocki is also a produce grower whose operations give heavily to Republicans:

Wysocki Produce Farm, of Bancroft, which is a 13,000-acre potato farm with 3,500 head of dairy cattle. Owners and employees contributed about $43,500 to Walker and current legislators between January 2010 and December 2014, including James and Sharon Wysocki, of Custer, $12,627; Kirk and Jacqueline Wille, of Custer, $5,900; and Russell and Diane Wysocki, of Custer, $5,250. (Wisconsin Democracy Campaign)

The Wisconsin Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy is holding a public hearing on SB 291 this morning.

The legislation is expected to pass with unanimous Republican support and unanimous Democratic opposition, and be signed into law by Scott Walker later this year.