High Capacity Well Proposals May Soon Bypass Environmental Impact Challenges

Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee approved a plan last night making it harder to challenge applications for high capacity wells.

The plan would prohibit someone from challenging high-capacity well permits because they lack consideration of their “cumulative environmental impact” when taken together with other wells in an area.

Sen. Cory Mason (D-Racine) called it a refusal to address the real problem posed by high-capacity wells, especially in Wisconsin’s Central Sands region.

“In a state that has long and proudly held to its Public Trust Doctrine that says the waters of this state belong to everybody, forever free, there’s a real problem with these lakes and rivers that are enduring a death by a thousand straws.”

The extent to which the state can regulate high-capacity wells has been an issue of some dispute in Wisconsin.The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled recently that the groundwater drawn by wells was in some cases protected by the state constitution.