Groundwater:
Wisconsin's Groundwater: Valuable…Vulnerable…Vanishing?

Groundwater is one of Wisconsin's vital natural resources. Seventy percent of Wisconsin residents and 9 out of 10 Wisconsin communities depend on it for drinking water. It is used in industrial manufacturing and is used to grow crops such as potatoes and corn. It helps sustain fishing and paddling opportunities across the state and the much-visited water parks in Wisconsin Dells. It feeds our beautiful rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands. Despite its importance groundwater is, for many people, "out of sight and out of mind." Communities across the state are finding out the hard way that groundwater supplies diminish without proper management.

Clean Wisconsin is working to protect the groundwater that sustains our communities, our economy and beautiful lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands.  A large part of this work focuses on building upon the 2004 Groundwater Protection Act (Act 310) which was a good first step in protecting the state's groundwater but has proven inadequate for the long term protection of the waters of Wisconsin. Since the passage of the law in 2004, rivers, lakes and springs in the state have gone dry.  Many of these occurrences have been linked to the increasing number of high capacity wells demonstrating that the 2004 law is not adequate.  We are working to protect more of Wisconsin's waters and to ensure that adeqaute environmental analysis occurs for proposed high cap wells.