Resident urges Sawyer County to update land-and-water plan and adopt municipal wellhead protections

Linda Zillmer, an Edgewater property owner from the village of Birchwood, used the public-comment slot to press the Land, Water and Forest Resources Committee to prioritize groundwater protection and to update the county's land and water resource management plan.

“Protecting groundwater is a priority,” Zillmer said, noting she had sent board members videos and links about groundwater protection before the meeting. She told the committee the county’s land-and-water plan is the basis for much of the state funding that supports department staffing and implementation work.

Zillmer urged the committee — which she described as the committee of jurisdiction for land and water conservation — to place an update of that plan on a future agenda and to ask the zoning committee to begin work on a municipal wellhead protection ordinance. She said the ordinance would allow county zoning to provide an “extra layer of protection in the towns adjacent to the area of the wellhead” where municipal wells draw water, and cited “another situation of a potential development that would threaten a municipal well.”

Zillmer contrasted municipal wellhead protections with shoreland protections, saying the wellhead ordinance would extend protections beyond municipal boundaries into adjacent town areas to reduce contamination risks.

The committee did not take action on Zillmer’s request during the meeting. Chair John Saralski moved on to routine agenda items after public comment. The committee did not schedule or commit to a specific follow-up in the minutes of this meeting.