The abundance of water is one reason why Native Americans
settled in Wisconsin.
But in recent years, some lakes in central Wisconsin
have been drying up and streams have disappeared.
It's been nearly 10 years since Wisconsin Public
Television aired the documentary "Water Rich, Water Poor" and
if 2009 is any indication, the problem is getting worse.
This week, in Wisconsin, reporter Art Hackett shows
you how the drought and new wells are draining the area
from Hancock to Stevens Point.
- Art Hackett: Barb Phelps grew up along the Little Plover River, a four-mile
long stream near Stevens Point.
- I'm completely emotionally attached to the
Little Plover because my grandmother used to take
me trout fishing at the 80 that's east of here.
- She still lives next to the stream.
Although there's an automatic flow monitor on her property,
she still logs it personally every day at an
old manual flow station.
On September 15th, Phelps said the creek had gone dry.
The sand silt in the bottom was just hard.
You could go and you could walk
completely up the creek.
There are still trout in the Little
Plover, but some of those trout are in Phelps's freezer.
She collected the dead fish not long after her discovery.
I don't know how many other holes there was trout
in that the coons ate up before I came home that day.
The Little Plover River may be low, but at least it's still
flowing most of the time.
That's not the case just to the south in Waushara County.
Here, Long Lake is long gone.
But we bought our cottage which is right over there in
1973. Yeah, the water in the lake was really, really nice.
Really clear.
Good, nice fishing.
Butch and Karen Brado say the problem started to
show up about five years ago.
Then it just kept going down and down and down and
it was gone completely.
It was a shock when we looked out in the fall and everything
was gone.
It was kaput.
Like the Germans would say, it was gone.
It was gone.
Today, Long Lake is a prairie.
No longer can you catch trophy bass in its waters,
though a Christmas tree farm is developing in
the Brado's backyard.
They say they've seen sandhill cranes from time to time.
A mirage perhaps?
This is the town of Oasis.
The town is home to several used-to-be lakes.
Like Long Lake, Plainfield Lake is water-free.
Huron Lake is in the process of drying up.
There was always farmland, always irrigation, but the
water level stayed high.
Sometimes it would be a little bit too high for us.
But it didn't get to be an issue until it got down
about beyond that point and it never came back up.
Chris Van Houten has a picture from the late
1990s showing him and his daughter pulling a sailboat.
This is the stump of the tree that's in that
shot. It's now about 30 feet from the waterline.
What was your reaction when you first saw that?
Well, it was a surprise and shock a little bit.
Tim Asplund is a water resource specialist with the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources.
He says he was first called to Long Lake in 2006.
People call all the time when there's a drought or there's
dry conditions saying, you know, "My lake level, my lake's down,
water levels are going down.
You know, what's the reason?"
And you sort of ask and probe a little bit more and
usually people are talking about a couple of feet drop.
And that's typical, a lot of these lakes.
Asplund says it's normal because these lakes are seepage lakes.
The water comes from springs feeding water out
of the surrounding soil.
They're profoundly affected by prolonged drought.
What I saw was pretty significant decline and
something that did cause some concern in terms of, you
know, this might be something more than just climate.
And they put in much bigger irrigation systems.
They've added new irrigation systems around here over
the last few years and they've killed the goose
that laid the golden egg.
You could quit irrigating tomorrow in the whole
state and it wouldn't change these lakes one bit.
The debate explains why the central sands are ground
zero as Wisconsin reviews its laws on groundwater.
The problem has gotten so bad in some areas.
Abbottsford and Colby are considering a 35-mile long
pipeline to Wausau because wells serving
those cities are going dry.
The state legislature is reviewing groundwater laws.
Next week,In Wisconsin's Art Hackett
explores the role farm irrigation wells are having
on the water problem.
And you'll hear from vegetable growers about their concerns
over tougher water regulations.
That's next week onIn Wisconsin.