By GEORGE ROGERS
of The Gazette
They may not all be on the same page, but irrigators, recreationists and environmentalists are talking with each other.
They discussed water issues civilly Wednesday, Jan. 16, at the Charles M. White Library during a program sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and the University of Wisconsin-Extension Groundwater Center. They are looking at water statewide, but the forum here was specifically on the central sand plain.
Louis Wysocki spoke of irrigation's benefits - how it has revitalized agriculture in this area, sending crop yields soaring and increasing employment and income.
He contrasted conditions today with those of the drought-stricken 1930s, when there was no irrigation here. Based on trials at the University of Wisconsin's Hancock Experiment Station, he said the yield of late potatoes from irrigated fields is 400 to 500 pounds per acre, compared with 100 to 200 pounds from nonirrigated land. Other crops show similar results from irrigation, he said.
Wysocki, from rural Custer, is a former chairman of the state Board of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and an officer in Wysocki family produce company.
Problems, however, have come with irrigation. George Kraft, director of the Central Wisconsin Groundwater Center at UW-Stevens Point, said the Little Plover River loses 9 percent of its flow to ground water pumping for irrigation. He added that the village of Plover's municipal pumping could have an even bigger impact - a flow reduction of up to 40 percent if it ever reaches capacity.
Nitrates and pesticides from agriculture have entered the ground water. Bringing nitrates down to safe levels has been costly for the villages of Plover and Whiting, Kraft said, and 38 percent of the wells in the state had at least one pesticide residue in 2000. Present technology doesn't detect all pesticides, he said, and not all the effects of every pesticide are known.
Although nitrate levels in the Plover and Whiting wells have dropped, there's nothing on the horizon to indicate that nitrates in general will decrease in the near future, said Kraft.
Wysocki said the agriculture community is concerned about the issue and has responded by using smaller amounts of fertilizers and pesticides, and applying them only when they're needed.
Dan Trainer, dean emeritus of the UW-SP College of Natural Resources, talked about a specific water resource in central Wisconsin - the Plover River. It's part of the quality of life in this area, he said, telling how efforts have been made for decades to protect the river's natural qualities. The most recent threat, he said, was a proposal to run the four-lane Highway 10 bypass across it, a danger that was averted when the state Department of Transportation dropped the plan in the face of community opposition.
Trainer said agriculture has been good to the Plover, but the concern is for the future.
Michael Dombeck, former chief of the U.S. Forest Service and now a UW-SP faculty member, said time spent in the courtroom doesn't do much to change things on the land. "Keep the issues here at home," he advised. "Keep it out of Madison. Keep it out of Washington, D.C."
The forum here was one of a series being held around the state. Curt Meine, the Wisconsin Academy's director of conservation programs, said a statewide forum will be held in Madison in October.