around the Village of Spencer in central Wisconsin doesn’ t have much glacial till over the bedrock areas, and the local bedrock is crystalline granite with less water-holding capacity. In 2001 the Village started searching for a new well because its shallow wells didn’ t comply with current Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources( WDNR) codes. Any new well in the Village would require placing the casing 60 feet underground( and into that granite bedrock) to reduce surface water influence on the well water. Local groundwater tends to be high in iron and manganese, which meant the most economical site would be relatively close to the water treatment plant, and any well site needed to meet setback requirements from buried fuel tanks, cemeteries, and other potential contaminants.
The Village examined geologic maps, studied data from test sites, worked with Ayres Associates to pinpoint a potential well site – and brought in a little extra help from Ray“ Stub” Griepentrog, a local resident with a knack for“ water witching”( a folk method for locating water using a willow branch). Griepentrog, who is nearing his 97th birthday, has been“ water witching” for more than 30 years.“ And lo and behold, it ended up fantastic!” said Dean Smith, the Village water system operator. Since 2005 Spencer has been using a new 290-foot well with a capacity of more than 200 gallons per minute – more than twice the capacity the Village had hoped for.
“ It’ s a high producer and the water quality is very good,” Smith said.“ It has lower iron content than what we have in the other wells and lower manganese, which makes it a lot easier to treat. We are most definitely more secure in our water supply.” The new well also has a self-contained generator to maintain service in case of a power failure.
Ayres Associates design engineer Casey Werner worked with the Village on the well site investigation, wellhead protection plan, well design, and construction.“ The production was better than we had hoped,” he said.“ We encountered a lot of fracture zones in the bedrock, and we also hydrofracked the well – we pumped pressurized water into the well to open fractures and increase production.”
Spencer was named water system of the year in 2008 by the Wisconsin Rural Water Association, a testament to the system function, water quality, and staff capabilities. But the Village can’ t rest on its laurels: An older well is now having problems, and the Village is looking for another well site.“ I hope we find another well just like the new one,” Smith said.
The City of Clintonville in northeastern Wisconsin has similar groundwater supply challenges. Since the early 1900s the community has drilled more than 70 wells looking for water and
The City of Clintonville, Wisconsin, made major improvements to its municipal water system( top photo), including a new water treatment facility at left and a 500,000-gallon ground storage reservoir at right. The City’ s water goes through an arsenic removal system( center photo) and is chemically treated( bottom photo) before going out to water customers.