Sawyer County committee agrees to add groundwater mapping and consider countywide wellhead protection goal in land-and-water plan
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Summary
After public comment, the Sawyer County Land, Water, and Forest Resources Committee directed staff to add explicit groundwater-mapping language and to include a goal to explore a countywide municipal wellhead protection ordinance in the next draft of the Land and Water Resource Management Plan.
Committee members, staff and members of the public discussed revisions to the draft Sawyer County Land and Water Resource Management Plan (version 8), emphasizing groundwater monitoring, well-testing programs, stormwater management in developing areas such as the city and town of Hayward, and municipal wellhead protection.
Public commenter Linda Zilmer, an Edgewater property owner, urged the committee to hold a recorded working meeting with stakeholders and recommended adding groundwater monitoring (nitrate, bacteria and PFAS testing), stormwater controls, stronger reclamation language for nonmetallic mining, attention to invasive species, and local air-quality monitoring to the plan. She also suggested presentations by UW Extension watershed educators to improve public understanding.
Staff reported that version 8 already includes language about a planned groundwater-mapping study to occur over the next two years and that prior comments from committee members had been incorporated. Committee members and public commenters discussed examples from other counties (Chippewa, Washburn, Rusk) and urged the committee to coordinate well-water testing countywide rather than relying on individual towns. One commenter described a town-funded program in which homeowners paid a portion of lab fees (example: $110 test; homeowner $30; town paid remainder) and noted PFAS testing was excluded from that town program because of high cost.
Committee discussion focused on how to balance additional content against public-hearing timelines. Staff said the plan requires a class 3 notice and that a revised "version 9" would need to be prepared quickly for publication and a public hearing next month. During the discussion the committee expressed support for adding explicit language in the plan to "explore and develop" a countywide municipal wellhead protection ordinance as a goal and objective; staff said adding such a goal would require additional GIS/mapping work and possible budget consideration but could be included as a near-term objective in version 9.
The committee did not adopt a final ordinance at the meeting; it directed staff to include the wellhead-protection goal and additional groundwater-testing language in the next draft for the public hearing.
