The Public Service Commission is taking public comments about Vista Sands through Friday, 8/16. Click here to support the project.
You may have heard that a major solar project is being proposed in central Wisconsin—at 1300 Megawatts (MW), Vista Sands Solar would be the biggest solar project our state has ever seen. But what sets Vista Sands apart from other projects isn’t just the size, it’s the location.
Vista Sands is proposed for Portage County in Wisconsin’s Central Sands region, a unique part of the state known for magnificent lakes and prized trout-fishing destinations like the Mecan River. But the qualities that make the Central Sands special also make it vulnerable. Sandy soils mean chemicals or fertilizers spread on the ground can move rapidly down into drinking water aquifers, putting wells at higher risk of contamination with insecticides, herbicides, bacteria and nitrates.
Statewide, about 10% of private drinking water wells are contaminated with nitrates at levels above the human health standard. In Portage County, it’s double that number at 20 percent. And a 2023 Statewide Groundwater Survey found that 64% of wells sampled in central Wisconsin were contaminated by pesticides. Pollution in groundwater can also make its way into nearby lakes, rivers and streams. Buena Vista Creek and adjoining Fourmile and Fivemile Creeks in central Wisconsin are considered Class I and II trout streams yet have alarmingly high levels of fertilizers and pesticides that are devastating to the fisheries.
We don’t often think of solar farms as protecting our water, but that’s exactly what will happen with a project like Vista Sands. Right now, three million pounds of fertilizer and 73,000 gallons of pesticides are spread onto the proposed project site every single year, resulting in as much as 40% of nitrogen fertilizer lost to the air, groundwater, and nearby waterways. Vista Sands will all but eliminate that application of fertilizers and pesticides and their potential to contaminate groundwater.
Vista Sands could also be a game-changer for serious concerns over aquifer levels in the Central Sands, where unsustainable drilling and relentless use of high-capacity wells to irrigate large tracts of land is drying up lakes, rivers and streams. A recent analysis found that these high-capacity wells reduced streamflow in Buena Vista Creek by 59%, and research in the nearby Little Plover River Basin indicates that irrigation accounts for about 80% of water use in the basin and is the main cause of water-level depletion in the river. If approved, Vista Sands will take 56 high-capacity wells out of normal operation, a number representing 20% of total water withdrawal in the Greater Buena Vista Area. In dry years these wells pump over 2 billion gallons of water from the aquifer.
There is no question that Vista Sands represents a huge step forward for clean, homegrown energy in Wisconsin, replacing dirty coal and reducing the pollution that drives climate change. But it also represents an opportunity to finally turn the tide on critical water issues that have plagued the Central Sands for years, an opportunity that should be front and center in the discussion of the environmental impacts of this project.
