A recent study estimates that 18% of the 1.7 million Wisconsinites reliant on groundwater may be drinking bacteria-infested water, much of it likely contaminated by manure.
Some excerpts from this article demonstrate our water isn’t as safe as we might hope.
As shown in the photo, yellow-brown well water used to come from the tap in the home of Chuck Wagner, who lives in rural Luxemburg in Kewaunee County. He said testing linked the contamination to cattle manure. It cost him $10,000 to drill a new well free of contaminants. Source: http://wisconsinwatch.org/2015/11/safe-clean-drinking-water-eludes-many-wisconsinites/
“The Center found that in many cases, residents are on their own when it comes to safeguarding their drinking water. Private well owners are not required to test their water, and only 16 percent do so annually, although 47 percent of private wells are estimated to be contaminated by one or more pollutants at levels above health standards. One-third of respondents to a 2008-09 state health survey said they had never tested their wells.”
“Even consumers of some municipal water should be wary…In 2012, researchers definitively linked the presence of the viruses in 14 Wisconsin municipal water systems to acute gastrointestinal illness. More than 73,000 people use water provided by 60 municipal water systems that do not disinfect, according to DNR figures.”