Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/drinking-water/)
Tests show waste from Kewaunee County’s 97,000 head of cattle contaminates majority of wells, especially after rainfall or snowmelt; human waste also a factor.
Gaps in federal drinking water standards enforced by the state leave numerous school and day care sites untested for lead in drinking water; numerous lead service lines remain.
Eighteen communities in Wisconsin, including Milwaukee, plan to replace lead lines leading to schools and day care centers. View the areas of the state where the work is planned.
A look at some of the facts and figures behind lead in our drinking water
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett acknowledges adding anti-corrosive chemicals, the main strategy to prevent lead in drinking water, is a “Band-Aid” approach.
Failing septic systems, leaking public sewer pipes and landspreading of septic waste can introduce dangerous pathogens into both rural and urban water systems. Experts say Wisconsin needs tougher laws to protect Wisconsin drinking water from contamination by sewage and septic waste.
Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents are at risk of illness from waterborne pathogens in private and public drinking water supplies. Contamination by pathogens is of special concern because unlike pollution by metals or chemicals, pathogens can sicken people after just a single exposure.
Eastern Wisconsin has among the highest levels of the heavy metal strontium in drinking water. Limits may be on the way for this unregulated contaminant.
As communities grow and pump more groundwater, radium from deep bedrock is contaminating dozens of water systems. The city of Waukesha wants to tap into Lake Michigan to solve its radium problem.
Experts, and even some regulators, say existing laws are failing to protect Wisconsin and the nation from harmful exposure to lead in drinking water that leaches from aging plumbing — a danger illustrated by the public health crisis in Flint, Michigan.
An ancient poison that was detected in the late 1980s in Wisconsin’s drinking water persists despite state regulations designed to eliminate it. High-capacity wells can exacerbate the problem.
Decades of toxic waste disposal at the Badger Army Ammunition Plant — including pouring millions of gallons a day of polluted water into Lake Wisconsin — have contaminated some nearby residents’ drinking water and raised concerns about the long-term effects on their health. But help may be on the way.