Read about proper landfill lining and construction regulations at the WDNR's Web site

When should I get my well tested?

From the CDC's Web site

- Every spring to make sure there are no mechanical problems.

- Once a year for germs.

- Once every two-three years for harmful chemicals.

Also if:

- There are known problems with well water in your area.

- Problems occurred near well: Flooding, land disturbances, nearby waste disposal sites.

- You replace or repair any part of your well system.

Other Helpful Sites:

The EPA has information about lab testing.

Have your well tested by the Eau Claire City-County Health department lab.

E-mail Tara Marshall with questions or comments on this story.

On Journalism home

City of Eau Claire ensures water safety in Union

Seven Mile Creek Landfill follows today's WDNR regulations with proper landfill lining and management. (Photo by Tara Marshall)

Since 1989, the City of Eau Claire has spent more than $2.8 million to guarantee safe drinking water to nearly 30 Town of Union homes.

The city isn’t just being a good neighbor, Eau Claire officials say, but is making sure that a nearby city landfill does not contaminate rural wells.

“It’s our responsibility, I think, both legally and morally,” said Dale Peters, the City’s risk management director. “The law is very clear that the polluter has to be responsible for damage that they do to either other people’s property or to the nearest people.”

State landfills constructed before the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s 1980s regulations are the number one source for groundwater contamination, WDNR officials say. Hazardous liquid and toxic wastes that were once dumped into unlined landfills created a breeding ground for volatile organic chemicals that have now seeped into the water table in and around the sites. The extent of contamination varies according to what was buried years ago, the corrective process is costly and the responsible parties are liable for cleaning up the problem.

Eau Claire is one of those responsible parties. In 1965 the city bought land in Union, about five miles out of town, and opened a landfill. The WDNR licensed the landfill four years later under the requirements at that time. The regulations prohibited landfills near floodplains, natural habitats or navigable surface water. In addition, all open burning dumps had to be converted to sanitary landfills. The regulations said nothing about liners or guidelines for toxic waste, according to the WDNR.

For the first 10 years of operation, the landfill accepted any and all waste products, toxins included, according to city-county documents. During the late 1970s, the landfill only accepted non-hazardous wastes before it officially closed in 1982. By that time the landfill was approximately 100 acres in size and right next door to the growing development of Blue Valley Estates subdivision.

The City's old landfill closed after about 15 years of operation.
(Photo By Tara Marshall)

Dolores Schultz lives in Blue Valley Estates in one of the homes nearest the landfill. She and her husband bought their home from its original owners in October of 1989, not knowing about the landfill just across the road.

“It came as a complete surprise,” Schultz said. “Nobody told us [about the landfill].”

In 1990, the city initiated an effort to remedy any landfill problems.

The process included informing Blue Valley Estate residents about the landfill and plans to test private well water.

Schultz went to one meeting, she said, and didn’t worry about it much after that.

“They held regular meetings,” Schultz said, “about information about the landfill.”

Blue Valley Estates Subdivision is just across the road from the old landfill.
(Photo by Tara Marshall)

Occasional informal meetings were held at Blue Valley Estates residents’ homes to keep them posted about what the city was doing just across the road at the old landfill, said Darryll Farmer, the Eau Claire City-County Director of Environmental Health.

“Those houses were built without any idea that there was a landfill there,” Farmer said. But after the meetings, Farmer said, the residents in Blue Valley Estates are well informed.

The city’s biggest concern was keeping the residents’ water safe. They began a quarterly testing procedure for homes in the subdivision.

“The residents seem very comfortable with what has been happening with testing,” Farmer said.

The City-County Health department sends a post card every three months informing the Blue Valley Estates residents when they will be testing area well water. If the residents choose to have the testing done at the city’s expense they send the card back and the health department will come to take a sample, Farmer said.

Schultz said she is not concerned and thinks the City of Eau Claire is doing a good job.

“I never worry about it,” Schultz said. “In fact I keep telling people in town, ‘our water is better than yours, we get it tested.’”

The Schultz’s tests have detected traces of volatile organic chemicals, but they are within the Environmental Protection Agency standards, which are on average five parts per billion, and have come back as safe for drinking. Some VOCs contain cancer causing elements, which raises health concerns. In the Schultz’s case, the levels are very low.

“If you drink [contaminated] water for 70 years above standards,” Farmer said, “your chances of getting cancer is one out of a million.”

Some officials say that the tests have gotten so elaborate that it’s hard not to find anything at all when testing water today.

“As technology has allowed us to test in smaller and smaller increments,” Peters said, “we are going to find these materials in some kind of level in anything, from air to water.”

Testing is only a small part of the expenses included in the remedial project, costing the city about $4,400 to test, on average, 12 wells per year. Larger expenses include the 36 monitoring wells drilled in and around the landfill, three extraction wells, and the eight private wells that the city has had to re-drill. However, the City of Eau Claire is not alone when it comes to paying the bill.

In 1991, a group called the Potential Responsible Parties formed to work out the details for the remedial project, which they submitted to the WDNR in 1993. Included in this group are those who contributed to the industrial waste during the landfill’s operation: The City of Eau Claire, Uniroyal Goodrich, Sacred Heart Hospital, Unisys, Waste Research and Reclamation Co., National Presto Industries and James River Corp.

The cleanup project included an extraction well system that would include three extraction wells, a groundwater treatment system and the discharge of treated groundwater to the Chippewa River.

The three extraction wells were installed and pumped 250-300 gallons per minute of highly concentrated contaminated water out of the ground, capturing 2500 feet in width of groundwater. A groundwater treatment system building collects the contaminated water through buried force mains. The water is then treated and discharged to the Chippewa River, according to city-county documents.

“We are cutting off the plume (contaminated area) and letting Mother Nature take care of it,” said Doug Joseph, WDNR Remedial Program Director and hydrogeologist.

The system, according to each chemical tested for, removed about 40-93 percent of the contamination. Nevertheless, it caused more problems for a few Blue Valley Estates residents.

After the extraction wells were drilled, some of the private wells in the subdivision were beginning to have problems, Peters said.

“Some private wells had sediment in them,” Peters said. This was a sign that the wells were drying up, and the city felt it their responsibility to make sure the residents had water.

Each private well owner and the city shared expenses to re-drill the wells, costing the city from $1,000 to $1,500 per well.

Recently there hasn’t been much activity at the old landfill, Peters said, but meetings to keep the Blue Valley Estates residents informed and happy will continue.

“We want to hear their complaints if they have any,” Peters said, “before they become bigger complaints.”

The City has done everything they could think of to continue to be the good neighbor, Peters said. One resident’s well was so contaminated that the city offered to pay for bottled water or a filtering system. The residents decided to move and the city had the well abandoned.

“It was a voluntary issue, and there was no litigation,” Peters said. “We approached them with an offer and it was a mutually agreed option.”

At the most recent meeting on Oct. 6, there were only a handful of Blue Valley Estates residents there, said Chuck Zabrowski supervisor on the town board for Union.

“I was surprised that there weren’t more people there,” Zabrowski said. “They didn’t seem too concerned.”

Most of the residents are not concerned. Schultz says the fact that she lives next to a landfill doesn’t bother her at all.

“I look at it this way,” Schultz said, “there’s a landfill over there, so what?”

New lot owner James Hogan said that when he bought his land on Nov. 22, the landfill wasn’t among his worries.

“It was noted by the realtor [that there was a landfill there],” Hogan said. “Where we’re building there are lot more homes that are closer to it [the landfill], so I’m not so concerned.”

City of Eau Claire officials are also pleased with the remedial process and say the problem is under control.

“To the best of my knowledge,” Peters said, “people have been satisfied with the services we are providing.

Listen to City risk management director, Dale Peters talk about the cleanup project.