Wisconsin, Long Rich in Water, Goodgood Toto Thethe Lastlast Ponders a New Era of Scarcity
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WISCONSIN, LONG RICH IN WATER, GOOD TO THE LAST PONDERS A NEW ERA OF SCARCITY. BY ERIK NESS IX DAYS BEFORE LABOR DAY, 9:50 A.M., and Dave Baker is already sweating through his work shirt. Today’s projected high is ninety-two degrees, and the asphalt at Noah’s Ark Water Park in Wisconsin Dells is quickly filling with cars, each one disgorging pilgrims robed in towels, anointed in sunscreen. Baker pilots his cart among the growing crowds with a task of singular impor- tance: prime the pump, turn the spigot, and keep the water flowing. Entering the Jungle Rapids pumphouse, he flies from power box to flow valves as the array of pumps and filters and PVC thrums to life. He shimmies down a ladder through a hole in the floor and the sound DROPDROP ?? escalates. Then he’s gone, off to the next attraction. When the park is finally at flood stage — five million gallons in thrall to recreation — Baker shows off one of the six on-site wells that make it all work. It’s remarkably small; in fact, the moving parts for “America’s Biggest Water Park” probably wouldn’t fill an average house. Shear away the scaffolding and its filigree of turquoise fiberglass and you’re left with six holes, twelve inches wide and 150 feet deep. It’s a testament to the simplicity of the formula: water plus gravity equals fun plus profit. I put my hand on the wellhead to feel the water surging within and ask Baker if he believes anyone at the park really thinks about where all this liquid refreshment comes from. “No, not really,” he replies. After all, what’s to think about? Wisconsin is seriously wet, with ample coast- line along both the mighty Mississippi and two Great Lakes, a bounty of fifteen thousand inland lakes, thousands of riparian miles, endless soggy acres. What we know about drought you could scribble on a Dells postcard and send to Denver or Los Angeles, signed Alfred E. Newman: “What, me worry?” “It’s when you’re most complacent that you’re most vulnerable,” warns Curt Meine MS’83, PhD’88 of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters. For the better part of two years, Meine, along with his colleagues, Michael Strigel MS’94 and Shaili Pfeiffer MS’01, has helped shepherd a statewide brainstorm called Waters of Wisconsin (WOW). Guided by an all-star committee, including five UW-Madison faculty members and ten alumni, the ongoing process has involved thousands of citizens, and is painting a portrait of both promise and peril for the state’s storied waters. WINTER 2003 23 DON FARRALL/PHOTODISC PHOTODISC COLLECTION At the foundation is the public trust settler of the region who, among other a great underground sponge now filled doctrine embedded in the state’s consti- things, harnessed the local water power, with billions of gallons of fresh water. tution, which protects all navigable Mount Simon is the barest geological “It’s a wonderful aquifer,” says Ken waters for the public. This protection has hint of a massive sandstone formation Bradbury PhD’82, hydrogeologist for been fortified through 150 years of case that underlies much of the Midwest. The the Wisconsin Geological and Natural law, and extends even to scenic beauty. rock is ancient, dating back some five History Survey, part of UW Extension. Beyond oft-cited Aldo Leopold ’36, hundred million years to the Cambrian “It’s a thick sequence of sandstones that John Muir x1863, and Gaylord Nelson days of the early Paleozoic Era. What we are very porous, very permeable, and ’42, Wisconsin is also the birthplace of now call Wisconsin was located in more very extensive.” Ranging from eight limnology, or lake science, in the United tropical climes, a shallow, coral-filled hundred to two thousand feet thick, it is States. The first limnology class was sea lapping sandy beaches and bays. hundreds, even thousands, of years old, taught in 1900 at the UW and, by some Time passed: Cambrian to Ordovician and there is a lot of it. Indeed, if you One of WOW’s more symbolic That’s fifty liters — five for drinking, ten • Florida, Alabama, and Georgia fight measures, Lake Mendota is the most to Silurian, Paleozoic to Mesozoic to brought all of Wisconsin’s groundwater achievements was prodding officials for preparing food, fifteen for bathing, over allocation of the Chattahoochee studied lake in the world. Appleton gen- Cenozoic. The sandy sea bottom was to the surface, it would cover the entire into declaring 2003 the Year of Water in and twenty for sanitation and hygiene. River. Virginia and Maryland bicker erated the world’s first electricity from gradually covered and compressed into state to a depth of 103 feet. Wisconsin, coinciding with the United Still, millions of people in countries such over the Potomac. falling water. The Coon Valley watershed sandstone. In some ways, it’s still a sea, Nations’s International Year of Fresh- as Gambia, Haiti, Somalia, Mali, and • Water-short California, which in southwestern Wisconsin pioneered soil water. But no proclamation can match Cambodia get by on fewer than three produces about half of the nation’s conservation. State management of flood- the power unveiled when the rain won’t gallons daily. Me, I’ve used about fifty produce, lost 15 percent of its yearly plains, lake cleanup, groundwater quality, “We have a train wreck coming in just a few years in some fall. Noah’s Ark may live by deluge, but gallons today, counting the laundry, Colorado River allocation when it and surface water are all national models. JEFF MILLER elsewhere in the Dells, the grass is a sere dishes, cooking dinner, a shower, and failed to meet a negotiation deadline. And Wisconsin was the only state to portions of Wisconsin. In the Fox Valley, in Waukesha, brown. It barely rained in August, and our low-flush toilet. A dairy cow needs • New York City holds its breath as a enact additional wetland protections fol- we’re running out of groundwater. Thankfully, in 75 percent many farms in the southern part of the thirteen to fifty gallons daily, depending long overdue third tunnel designed to lowing a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court deci- state are officially in drought. The Wis- on her output. The manufacture of a safeguard its ancient supply lines is sion that opened 20 percent of previously of the state that problem is many years away. However, the consin is more a river of sand than water. silicon wafer requires three thousand. years behind schedule. protected wetlands for development. general water quality challenges are immense.” Lake Michigan’s shoreline is approach- If you live in Wisconsin, or some- Sitting lakeside with UW planning Despite this foundation of leadership, ing historic lows. Waukesha’s water is place else where thirst is not yet an issue, professor Stephen Born MS’68, PhD’70, precedent, and law, water policy in Wis- radioactive, and a rancorous state legisla- consider yourself lucky. Worldwide: the world doesn’t seem quite so dry. A consin resembles Frankenstein: many ture is slated to draw up new groundwa- • 1.1 billion people do not have access river rat by vocation and avocation, Born working parts, and a few areas of mon- ter legislation this fall. to potable water. is approaching retirement with a fixed strous dysfunction. For example, despite Scarcity is an unsettling notion in • 2.4 billion people do not have gaze on the mating habits of those aquatic consumption advisories for hundreds of a state where water has always been adequate sanitation facilities. insects favored by trout. What keeps state fisheries, the state has been unable taken for granted. But for the foresee- • Water-borne diseases fill half of all him in the classroom is a desire to help to regulate mercury emissions. Todd able future, it’s the dominant paradigm hospital beds and kill one child every revamp the state’s outlook on water. With Ambs, who ran the environmental in most of the world. Water can both eight seconds. some interference from a cool Terrace advocacy group River Alliance before create and destroy; the wisdom to • Those of us in rich countries use ten breeze, Born relaxes into his pipe, and taking on the water division of the state’s benefit from its power comes only from times more water than citizens of pops the bubble: “We’re coming to a time Department of Natural Resources under following its course. poor nations, who often pay rates when — even in wet climates — we’re Governor Jim Doyle ’67, sees the faults “With water, there are always new ten times higher. going to have to start looking at urban in glaring relief. connections,” says Meine. “You can These problems are not expected water management,” he warns. “We’re “We have a train wreck coming in never fully account for them all, know to get better. As a report by the BBC going to have to give much more atten- just a few years in some portions of about them all, or predict them all. You recently put it, “The present is dire: the tion to conservation, to recycling, to aug- Wisconsin,” he says. “In the Fox Valley, can’t deal with water issues in isolation.” future looks so grim it must be entirely mentation of flows. We can’t talk about in Waukesha, we’re running out of unmanageable.” managing groundwater without talking groundwater. Thankfully, in 75 percent Water issues in the United States about managing surface water, and of the state that problem is many years WATER MARKS aren’t yet that grim, but water is clearly quantity is related to quality, and pretty away.