Wisconsin enjoys a generally clean and abundant groundwater resource. Drinking water in Wisconsin is provided by either public water systems or private wells. A public water system is defined as a system that provides public water for human consumption, if such a system has at least 15 service connections or regularly serves an average of at least 25 individuals daily at least 60 days out of the year.
Wisconsin has nearly 11, public water systems which meet the daily water needs of about 4 million people. Public water systems that are owned by a community are called municipal water systems. A4 Eau Claire County has 5 municipal water systems. In addition to the public water systems, about , private wells provide drinking water to Wisconsin's population.
Unlike public water systems, protection and maintenance of a private well is largely the responsibility of homeowners. Information on how to build and protect your private water supply can be found on the WDNR web site.
Wellhead protection plans are developed to achieve groundwater pollution prevention measures within public water supply wellhead areas. In some areas of the state, sophisticated groundwater flow modeling techniques were used to delineate source water areas for municipal wells. A wellhead protection plan uses public involvement to delineate the wellhead protection area, inventory potential groundwater contamination sources, and manage the wellhead protection area.
All new municipal wells are required to have a wellhead protection plan. A wellhead protection ordinance is a zoning ordinance that implements the wellhead protection plan by controlling land uses in the wellhead protection area. Of those municipal water systems that have wellhead protection WHP plans, some have a WHP plan for all of their wells, while others only have a plan for one or some of their wells.
