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Committee directs staff to add groundwater monitoring and a municipal wellhead protection goal to land and water plan
Summary
The Sawyer County Land and Water Resource Management Committee opened an extended discussion of the draft Land and Water Resource Management Plan, with public commenters and supervisors urging additional groundwater monitoring, well testing, stormwater controls and a municipal wellhead protection goal.
Members of the public and committee members spent an extended portion of the meeting discussing the draft Sawyer County Land and Water Resource Management Plan (version 8) and requested additional protections and technical work before the plan’s public hearing.
Linda Zilmer, an Edgewater property owner and resident of the village of Birchwood, urged the committee to hold a special working meeting and to expand the draft to include groundwater mapping and active groundwater monitoring for nitrates, bacteria and PFAS. “I appreciate that this committee, didn't hold the public hearing this month to allow, for more public, input on the plan itself,” Zilmer said, adding that local testing and stakeholder presentations (including UW Extension) would help inform the plan.
Committee members and other public speakers raised a range of specific additions they want incorporated: targeted groundwater monitoring and town‑level well testing programs, municipal wellhead protection ordinances to protect city wells where municipal boundaries abut county land, stormwater management for developing areas such as the city and town of Hayward, improved reclamation standards for nonmetallic mining, invasive‑species measures for recreational uses, and air‑quality monitoring in light of wildfire smoke and local sources.
Conservation staff told the committee the DNR had identified a public information meeting Dec. 15 regarding proposed water‑level changes on Lac Courte Oreilles, that the county had included reference to a groundwater‑mapping study in the plan (version 8), and that staff planned to prepare a version 9 that would be circulated for the required Class 3 notice and public hearing. Staff said a municipal wellhead protection ordinance could be added as a goal or objective, that towns could adopt their own ordinances, and that developing a countywide ordinance would require mapping and some budget/time to implement.
Supervisor Ulmer recommended a countywide approach to groundwater testing rather than having individual towns run separate programs. A county staff member said some basic tests (nitrate, bacteria) are available through county resources and that PFAS testing remains expensive; the transcript records an example of a town well testing program with a $110 test where the homeowner paid $30 and the town paid the remainder.
Committee direction and timeline
• Staff were asked to incorporate groundwater‑testing language and to add a goal to explore and potentially develop a countywide municipal wellhead protection ordinance into a revised version (version 9) of the plan. Staff said the plan must be published as a Class 3 notice and indicated a tight publication timeline (one week to start the process and roughly two weeks before the hearing), so staff will attempt to circulate a revised version before next month’s public hearing.
What the committee did not do
No final vote to adopt the Land and Water Resource Management Plan occurred at this meeting; the committee instead directed staff to prepare revisions and proceed with the public‑notice process.
