Vicious Cycle: The story of Wisconsin’s most common contaminant

Water quality was not on Steven Shoemaker and Elisabeth Minich’s minds when they bought their farm in Southwest Wisconsin in 2018. When they moved in, they were told their groundwater was contaminated with nitrates more than double the maximum contamination level. Many families around Wisconsin share a similar story – they are unable to bring clean drinking water into their homes because of nitrate contamination.

In the three-part series ‘Vicious Cycle,’ Clean Wisconsin unpacks how Wisconsinite’s groundwater is being contaminated with dangerously high levels of nitrates, where its coming from and why the solutions are not as easy as they seem.