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Counties discussing tri-county well testing effort
Dream team ONLINE
IT WAS A DREAM TEAM for water quality that met in Gays Mills on Friday, April 12 to discuss a tri-county well testing effort for Crawford, Vernon and Richland counties. At-tendees at the mebting included, back row: Crawford County Conservationist David Troester, Eli Mandel of Crawford Stewardship Project, Vernon County Conservationist Ben Wojahn, Sydney Garvalia, Vernon County Public Health Sanitarian, Tom Lukens of Valley Steward-ship Network, Forest Jahnke of Crawford Stew-ardship Project, and Melissa Luck, Richland County Board Supervisor and member of Richland County Land Conservation Committee. In the front row: Richland County Conservationist Cathy Cooper, and Crawford County Director of Public Health Cindy Riniiker.

CRAWFORD, VERNON AND RICHLAND COUNTIES - Gays Mills played host to a group of committed conservation and public health professionals and environmental health advocates to discuss a tri-county approach to well testing on Friday, April 12. County Conservationists from Crawford, Vernon and Richland counties, along with Public Health Department employees from Crawford and Vernon, and representatives from Crawford Stewardship Project (CSP) and Valley Stewardship Network (VSN) met at the Gays Mills Community Commerce Center to begin to move the initiative forward.

Vernon County Conservationist Ben Wojahn explained to the group that the Vernon County Board of Supervisors had approved $12,000 from this year’s Ho-Chunk payment for the purpose of funding a well water testing program in the county. In addition, he explained that the Tainter Creek Watershed Council (TCWC) had conducted well water testing of 43 wells in the watershed in Crawford and Vernon Counties in November of 2018, and planned another round of testing in 2019.

“I’d like to see the TCWC coordinate their testing with this larger initiative, if possible,” Wojahn said. “In Vernon County, we’ve got the funding and we’re ready to go.”

Crawford County Conservationist Dave Troester reported that he currently has the money in his budget to move forward with testing in 2019, but could wait until Spring of 2020 if that is the soonest that Richland County could secure the funding.

Richland County Conservationist Cathy Cooper and Richland County Board Supervisor/Land Conservation Committee member Melissa Luck also attended the meeting.

“The soonest that Richland County will be able to fund the study will be Spring of 2020,” Cooper explained. “I will have to put the funds in my 2020 budget, and then it will have to be approved by my committee and by the county board.”

Testing completed

The group discussed the history of well testing that had already been completed in the tri-county area, and what kind of data was already available about groundwater quality.

Cooper explained that in the past, Richland County had conducted a well testing effort in the southern sands part of the county, along the Wisconsin River.

In addition, Supervisor Luck told the group about the recent, well-attended meeting held in Richland Center to discuss water quality and well water testing. Almost 50 people heard experts and advocates discuss karst geology, the Southwest Wisconsin Groundwater and Geology (SWIGG) study being conducted in Grant, Iowa and Lafayette counties, and work being done by community advocates in Southwest Wisconsin.

“Coming out of that meeting, we determined that we wanted to launch a well-owner-funded testing program immediately for people that were concerned about the quality of their well water,” Luck explained. “We were authorized by the Center for Watershed Science and Education (CWSE) at UW-Stevens Point to send them 15 samples. The well owner paid $52 for the homeowners test, and our department saved them the cost of overnight shipping by delivering the samples to Stevens Point.”

Luck explained that with all the attention water quality is getting in the state, the lab in Stevens Point is getting a lot of requests for their services. 

“Nevertheless, even though individual well owner test results are completely confidential, high level data from tests, not associated with a well owners specific address or name, can be viewed in the ‘Well Water Quality Viewer’ on CWSE’s website,” Luck said. “Currently CWSE offers the state the best centralized data base of well water quality available.”

Wojahn discussed the different testing packages available through CWSE, Homeowners, Metals and Pesticides, and what tests it would make sense for the three counties to undertake in their effort.

“Because of the DATCP funding, TCWC was able to offer both the Homeowners and Metals tests, a $150 value, for only a $25 expense to well owners,” Wojahn explained. “Farmers from the group coordinated collection of the samples and then drove them up to Stevens Point.”

Wojahn said he would really like the testing in Vernon County going forward to offer those two same tests, so that well owners will get a good picture of their well water quality and all of the data will line up. He said that given the funding available in the Tainter Creek Watershed, he would likely focus spending his Ho-Chunk funds elsewhere in the county.

Forest Jahnke of the Crawford Stewardship Project reported that CSP had recently completed a 50 well sampling all across Crawford County.

“We offered the same two tests as TCWC did, and were able to offer the same cost share as well,” Jahnke reported. “We collected the samples and drove them up to Stevens Point.”

Jahnke told the group that Kevin Masarik, UW-Extension Groundwater Education Specialist, would report on the well testing results at a meeting on Saturday, April 27, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the Crawford County Highway Department building, just south of Seneca on Highway 27.

Tom Lukens of Valley Stewardship Network reported to the group that the West Fork Kickapoo Watershed Association was also looking at conducting a well water testing effort in their watershed.

“It sounds to me like CWSE is much more cost effective than the State Laboratory in Madison, but that if well owners could use the Vernon County lab for a cost of $40, that might be the best way for us to go,” Lukens said. “We are looking at this effort as a way to bring the watershed together around a common effort.”

Public health

Crawford County Public Health Director Cindy Riniker, and Vernon County Public Health Sanitarian Sydney Garavalia both attended the meeting.

“We want to emphasize that the bottom line of well water testing is public health,” Riniker said. “Even if the broader sampling and study can’t go forward until Spring of 2020, we want to encourage well owners who have concerns to get their wells tested as soon as possible.”

Riniker said that all three counties offered testing services through the state lab for residents whose wells had been submerged in flood waters. Garavalia said that the lab she runs in Vernon County can offer those services as well, but has a limited capacity to analyze samples at any given point in time.

Riniker and Garavalia agreed that their departments could support the effort with a public awareness campaign, and working with well owners who discover issues with their water quality on remediation efforts.

Funding

A big topic for the group was to understand what the costs of the study would be. To conduct a study like the SWIGG study would cost, the group believed, about $170,000.

“However, my understanding is that the most expensive aspect of that study is the second tier analysis of source of contaminants testing,” Luck said. “I think just for the basic testing, the cost would be much less.”

All agreed that it would be helpful to try to obtain the budget break out for the SWIGG study in order for the group to begin to firm up their plans, make decisions about what the scope of the study would be, and begin to line up each county’s funding. Forest Jahnke and Eli Mandel agreed to try to obtain information about the SWIGG budget before the group’s next meeting.

“It’s my understanding that a lot of the results from the SWIGG study will be applicable in our three counties as well, given that we have the same or very similar karst hydrogeology,” Wojahn said. “So it may be that just the well water testing alone might be enough to get us started, and perhaps we can configure our testing so that it could be expaned to the more expensive source testing in the future.”

Luck reported that in discussions she’d had with Representative Travis Tranel, it seemed that well water testing would have support from both sides of the aisle in the state budget process.

“It may be that by Spring of 2020 more funding will be available than we know of at this time,” Luck said. “However, there is also a great deal of demand for those funds, and we need to move ahead in securing the funding we need from our own resources.”

Wojahn reported that Representative Loren Oldenburg had been in the Vernon Land Conservation Department office just that morning, and had reiterated support both for increased Soil and Water Resource Management funding and well water testing funding in the state budget.

New life to the battery packaging plant?
CEO Greene eyeing former Energizer building for proposed plant
New life wis batt

   It appears that Wisconsin Battery Company CEO Jeff Greene is a believer in the old saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

   Back in June, Greene announced plans to lease the former Family Dollar building  in Fennimore, stating the building could become a battery packaging plant for the Wisconsin Battery Company.

   In an interview with the Fennimore Times on June 9, Greene stated that “ideally, we’ll be able to start in Fennimore in 10 to 12 weeks.” He went on say that as of June 9, he had received 30-40 resumes, and he hoped to “have the first 12 employees dialed in the next four weeks, which at that time would have meant mid to late July.

   He had also stated he hoped to possibly lease or buy the former World of Variety building next door.

   Additionally, in April of last year, the Wisconsin  Battery Company broke ground in Portage on a new facility to produce batteries. The Portage location was to be a packaging plant until the new facility is completed, hopefully in a year at time of the ground breaking.

   And then things went quiet.

   The former Family Dollar building still remains empty and available for purchase or lease, and the World of Variety building has been purchased by Rob Krantz, owner of Krantz Auto Parts, with the building to become a hardware store later in this year.

   According to an article in last week’s Telegraph Herald,  Greene stated that the company missed out on a $50 million U.S. Department of Energy grant, which was part of $3 billion the department awarded this year for battery manufacturing and recycling operations.

   Additionally, in her October report to the Fennimore City Council regarding the Wisconsin Battery Company and its CEO Jeff Greene, then Fennimore Community Development Manager Lydia McLimans stated, “Despite promises of a ‘big announcement’ in September, no announcement has been made, and we don’t expect one to ever be made. Their project in Portage is on hold for lack of funding, as they did not receive the grants they were banking on. Jeff Greene did ask me to write a grant on their behalf which we  declined to do based on our research of the grant that led us to believe his proposal didn’t meet the grant requirements.”

   “We didn’t win the grant. We’re going to have to do this on our own,” Greene told the Herald.

   This month, Greene is hoping to round out a drive for $12 million in private investments through Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s Qualified New Business Venture Program, which offers incentives, such as tax credits, for investment in early-stage Wisconsin businesses.

   This, combined with $40 million in industrial revenue bonds, will “kickstart the enterprise,” Greene said, although the company will need immediate revenue to pay off the bonds.

   “We’ve had lots of pivots during this process,” Greene stated to the Fennimore Times. “We’ve had to modify our business plan. Mostly shifting from a private company to a public one.”

   “We’re working very diligently to finally get this done,” Greene went on to say.

   Greene also stated to the Herald that one benefit came from not receiving the grant, that being now having the ability to use the approximately 200,000-square-foot former Energizer facility.

   He hopes to start a lease-purchase agreement with the former Energizer building’s new owners next month for the site of the new plant.

   As he stated back in June, should the packaging plant come to fruition, Greene said he still hoping to hire locals, especially those who previously worked at the Energizer plant, with the former Energizer space serving as a warehouse for reselling Chinese-made batteries as his team conducts research and development for future manufacturing at the facility.

     Down the road, Greene stated the company would sell green graphite and hard carbon to other battery manufacturers and would also manufacture its own specialty batteries.

   “If Wisconsin Battery is able to get up and running in Fennimore, they’ll be able to attract talented workers,” Ron Brisbois, Grant County Economic Development Corporation executive director, said to the Herald. “I know we have that (manufacturing) skillset in the area.”

   “We’ll grow slow,” Greene stated in his interview. “But we hope to have 200 to 300 employees in the next three to five years at the plant.”

   When asked if he was concerned about attracting employees, as his original plan had his plant opening at or near the same time Energizer closed, Greene stated, “Our plan is to offer the highest wages and best benefits in the area. Attracting employees shouldn’t be an issue.”

   Greene also stated the company still has similar plans for the Portage location, but with the Fennimore plant ready for use once nearly $3 million in equipment is added, and with the Portage plant still needing construction, Fennimore is his company’s main focus as of now.

   One potential obstacle in Greene’s battery reselling plan is President-Elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on China. However, Greene believes these tariffs in the long-term could benefit domestic battery manufacturers like his own.

            The Telegraph Herald contributed to this article.