Here & Now

Nelsonville's Water Woes: Finding Nitrate Pollution in Wells

Frederica Freyberg:

We now turn to central Wisconsin where the discovery of nitrate in drinking water is posing a threat to public health in a small village. “Here & Now” reporter Nathan Denzin takes us to Nelsonville for the story.

Tarion O’Carroll:

Well, it started when I bought this house.

Nathan Denzin:

Tarion O’Carroll has lived in Nelsonville for about ten years. He says when he first moved in and started testing, his private well saw high nitrate levels.

Tarion O’Carroll:

They offered another nitrate screening in the village of Amherst and I decided to get a bunch of glass mason jars and I took them around and collected samples from all of my neighbors and about half of those samples came back above ten.

Nathan Denzin:

Above ten here means more than ten parts per million, the listed unsafe limit for nitrates. If you’ve ever driven by farms in Wisconsin, chances are you’ve smelled manure getting sprayed on crops. What you might not know, the process of fertilizing farmland can leave a chemical called nitrate in the soil. Nitrates can have serious health effects if they leech into drinking water. Nitrates are produced naturally when manure is sprayed on crops. Nitrate is necessary for most cash crops like corn or alfalfa to grow. George Kraft is a hydrologist at UW Stevens Point.

George Kraft:

Rainwater and snow melt, they wash the nitrate down through the soil and nitrate is a pretty slippery chemical. It doesn’t want to stick and it moves through the soil profile and gets to groundwater.

Nathan Denzin:

Normally Wisconsin’s clay-rich soil filters out nitrate before the chemical can reach private wells. However, in the Central Sands region in and around Portage County, nitrates move quickly through sandy soil and infiltrate groundwater. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says high levels of nitrate in drinking water can cause birth defects, Blue Baby Syndrome, thyroid disease and increase the risk of colon cancer. Any level above ten parts per million can be harmful to long term health. A threshold the O’Carroll’s water surpassed. Nelsonville has been dealing with a known nitrate problem in the private wells there since 2018, though it’s likely the problem has existed in the area for decades.

Jennifer McNelly:

In 2018 the residents who live within the village of Nelsonville had started asking questions regarding their water quality and when we started trying to find data to answer their questions, we realized there really wasn’t a whole lot.

Nathan Denzin:

Using grant money, Portage County Water Resource Specialist Jen McNelly and other county scientists sampled 60 of the village’s roughly 80 private wells and found results that alarmed her. About half of all wells in Nelsonville show nitrate levels above the safe limit of ten parts per million with some even reaching a dangerous tipping point of over 30 parts per million. If nitrate levels reach 30 parts per million, water can no longer be cleaned and made safe. However, it’s impossible to tell if your water is contaminated unless you regularly test it.

Tarion O’Carroll:

It doesn’t taste any different. It doesn’t look any different. There is no smell to it. It tastes great.

Nathan Denzin:

Mark Bruggeman is one of those people who has well water above the ten parts per million limit and is fighting for clean water as his well approaches that 30 parts per million limit.

Mark Bruggeman:

We can’t go on without water. It’s necessary for anything you want to do.

Nathan Denzin:

Bruggeman lives in a house with his wife, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He says after getting results that showed his water at dangerous levels, he contacted Culligan to install a reverse osmosis machine. Reverse osmosis or RO machines can filter nitrate under 30 parts per million. Bruggeman says his wife would often drink water from the faucet not connected to his RO machine, which could have had further impacts on her health.

Mark Bruggeman:

We now keep jugs of water in the fridge and Lois pretty much doesn’t get her own water anymore.

Nathan Denzin:

While RO machines are one Band-Aid solution, O’Carroll says his family has opted to get water from a public well in Lynd, a tiny town about 40 miles away from Nelsonville.

Tarion O’Carroll:

Not too bad. We’re at almost 30 degrees. Swimming weather in Sconnie. I drive there weekly and fill up my seven-gallon jugs. I usually fill about 4 or 5 of them.

Nathan Denzin:

O’Carroll says he tested this water to make sure it doesn’t have nitrate and now makes the 90-minute journey about once a week.

Tarion O’Carroll:

In the summer, it’s not too bad. In the wintertime, it can suck. It gets all icy and they’re heavy. So it’s not something I look forward to.

Nathan Denzin:

The next step for residents of Nelsonville: find out where the nitrates are coming from.

Tarion O’Carroll:

As I like to tell people, my story’s not unique.

Nathan Denzin:

For “Here & Now,” I’m Nathan Denzin in Nelsonville.