Kaukauna water boil advisory could be lifted Wednesday.
Jeff Feldt, general manager of Kaukauna Utilities, told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin the first of two crucial water samples shows no contamination in the water supply.
A water main broke at Third and Main streets during construction on Monday.
RELATED:4,000 Kaukauna residents under water boil advisory Tuesday’s sample was taken at noon.
If the Tuesday test also shows no contamination, the advisory could be lifted as soon as Wednesday morning.
"We’ll know tomorrow morning (about the water sample test results), then in consultation with the DNR we could lift the ban," Feldt said.
The utility isolated the break and is working to repair it.
While no homes are without water, the broken water main caused pressure in the water distribution system to drop below recommended levels.
Residents who boil water should make sure the liquid maintains a rolling boil for at least one minute before use, according to the advisory.
Jen Zettel: 920-996-7268, or jzettel@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @jenzettel

Supreme Court Sides With Wisconsin In Property Rights Case.
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a victory today to state and local governments and environmental groups with a major property rights decision.
By a 5-3 vote, the justices sided with the government in certain disputes with private property developers.
NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: The Constitution bars the taking of private property by the government without just compensation.
And the Supreme Court for a century has said that when the government goes too far in regulating property so as to make it economically unusable, the government also has to compensate the owner.
The regulations barred building on any lot smaller than one acre of land.
TOTENBERG: John Groen of the Pacific Legal Foundation represented the Murrs.
TOTENBERG: The reason, he explains, is that when the government regulates private land use… LAZARUS: It almost never says that you can’t do anything with all the property you own.
TOTENBERG: And what the Supreme Court said today was that property owners are not entitled to compensation from the government when regulations reduce the value of the property by a relatively small portion and where, as in this case, those regulations to some degree have enhanced the value of the property.

Wochit SHEBOYGAN – A state department charged with reviewing annexations has said the Kohler Company’s contentious bid to connect new land to the City of Sheboygan is “in the public interest.” But the Department of Administration is nevertheless advising the city and the Town of Wilson, which would lose land under the proposal, to work together on resolving irregular boundaries “to avoid future disputes.” The Kohler Company is pushing for the annexation in a bid to establish a new 18-hole golf course on land it owns in the Town of Wilson along Lake Michigan.
The Press received a copy of it after requesting the letter Tuesday from a city official.
“I’m stunned that something so contrived and all about one person can be called ‘public interest,’” added DesJardins, who characterized the proposed annexation and golf course as a pet project foisted on locals by former Kohler CEO Herbert V. Kohler Jr. Sheboygan Common Council members could vote as soon as their next meeting to approve the annexation, along with a few other related items.
Besides finding the move would be in the public’s interest, the department also suggested the proposed golf course would fit better in a city than in a town.
The type of annexation in question, though, has drawn scrutiny.
(The term refers to annexations that connect a large property — the “balloon” — to cities along narrow strips of adjoining land — the “string.”) The administration department doesn’t clearly say whether the Kohler Company’s proposal would meet conditions for annexation, though it hints that the move, “while not ideally shaped,” might survive legal challenge.
(Kohler’s move would involve connecting the golf course property to the city along a stretch of land between 190 and 1,450 feet wide.)
“Additionally, we find that the proposed land use of the annexation territory and the adjacent land to the north is more homogenous with the City than it is with the Town,” the department says, noting the proposed golf course is “urban in nature.” The letter suggests the city could eventually annex other nearby parts of the Town of Wilson, noting parts of the town near the golf course that have seen housing developments in the past fit more neatly in the city than in the township.
Committee recommends approving agreement The city’s Finance and Personnel Committee earlier this week voted, 3-to-1, to recommend the Common Council eventually approve a pre-annexation and development agreement with the Kohler Company.
Among other things, the agreement, which still needs approval from the full council, would spell out how the eventual golf course would connect with city water lines.

Fecal Microbes In 60% of Sampled Wells.
Up to 60 percent of sampled wells in a Kewaunee County study contained fecal microbes, many of which are capable of making people and calves sick, two scientists told hundreds of local residents gathered at a public meeting Wednesday night.The microorganisms included Cryptosporidium, a parasite that comes from both people and animals.
“Obviously we shouldn’t have septic systems if they aren’t working.
The study tested water from 621 of them representing wells with various depths of soil to bedrock.
Seventy-nine of those wells were contaminated by a fecal microorganism — either a virus, parasite or bacteria — 62 of which were linked directly to either bovine or human sources.
Of the 12,200 people using private wells in the county, a projected 140 people per year are infected, as well as 1,700 calves.
“Some people have the money to fix it, but there are many people who can’t even find $500 dollars to put in a treatment system at one faucet,” he said.
Borchardt said when dangerous pathogens were found in private wells during the course of the study, homeowners got phone calls right away to alert them to the results.
The researchers placed autosamplers in three homes to continuously test water quality during periods of recharge.
“Even if the water’s not brown,” Borchardt said, “it doesn’t mean you aren’t drinking contaminated water.” Asked how to solve Kewaunee County’s water problems, Borchardt suggested an expensive fix.

Nancy Utesch: DNR’s low-key response to Kewaunee’s water crisis not nearly enough.
The Department of Natural Resources’ recent low-key roll-out of help for Kewaunee County residents dealing with contamination so great that they cannot drink nor should they bathe in their water highlights the DNR’s continued failures, lack of integrity, and continued lack of urgency in responding to Kewaunee’s health and water crisis.
Our animal numbers have surpassed the 98,000 mark, while our human population is roughly 20,500.
This burgeoning problem, akin to pouring gasoline on the fire, is rarely discussed — nor is the reality that we can no longer shoulder the burdens of the intensive farming taking place where we live and the resulting water contamination, human health threats, plunging property values, and severe quality of life issues that are as widespread as our growing water contamination rates.
Walker and industry interests make silver-bullet promises of fertilizer plants, biogas plants, digester cures and more remedies — but don’t discuss actually curtailing the addition of more cows in our county and the massive contaminating waste that’s generated.
Initiatives by local farmers addressing conservation practices are slowly being implemented, but lack of DNR oversight and enforcement of CAFOs continues to be a major problem, and safeguards such as herd caps and in-ground monitoring wells at lagoon sites and spreading fields continue to be contested in court.
Make no mistake, citizens and various attorneys, including Midwest Environmental Advocates, have done the heavy lifting on the manure situation in Kewaunee.
On the latest research findings, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Mark Borchardt stated: “We have never seen this level of contamination before.” Work groups engaged stakeholders for over a year, formulating recommendations for addressing the problems that plague our community and its water, only to have Gov.
Scott Walker gut the recommendations after meeting with industry interests, with the Dairy Business Association claiming rule revisions would make dairy farmers scapegoats.
Nancy Utesch is a farmer from Kewaunee and a petitioner of the Safe Drinking Water Act, filed to the EPA in October 2014, about Kewaunee’s water crisis.

Study results released on Kewaunee County water contamination.
Luxemburg, Wis. (WBAY)- For months we’ve been hearing stories about brown water in Kewaunee County.
A study conducted by three different agencies to sought to determine that, and at a public meeting in Luxemburg Wednesday night a big crowd gathered to find out, what’s causing it.
That contamination level is much higher than in other counties within the state.
Some of it, stems from shallow soils– which are used for farming and bed rock beneath that.
Groundwater Task Force said, "There’s not enough soil to filtrate all of the viruses and contaminates.
We also have some likely contamination coming from septic systems."
The county hopes to use these study results as a way to promote changes both at the local level and with state legislators.
Davina Bonness of the Kewaunee Co. Land & Water Conservation Department said, "So what we’re doing in the county is we’ve dropped a couple of ordinances trying to get some low pressure drip irrigation systems, trying to spread that window of manure irrigation over the entire growing season, and hopefully that will help with some of the manure contaminants."
Also, inspections of septic systems are now a bigger priority.

Three Wisconsin workers die in corn mill explosion, several more seriously injured.
An explosion at a Cambria, Wisconsin corn mill and ethanol plant Wednesday night took the life of three workers and injured nearly a dozen.
Spokesmen for the company reported that 16 workers were in the mill at the time of the explosion.
OSHA and other federal agencies have cited Didion Mills for multiple safety and environmental violations as far back as the early 2000s.
Purdue University, which tracks fatalities from grain dust explosions, reported five having occurred in the United States last year, killing two workers.
The company received no further OSHA citations thereafter.
In 2010, Didion agreed to pay $1.05 million to the Wisconsin Department of Justice to settle lawsuits that alleged the company violated state clean air and water regulations regards emissions from its plants into the air and into neighboring streams and lakes.
A month later, Democratic Governor Jim Doyle announced that Wisconsin had been awarded $14.5 million in federal stimulus money for so-called green energy projects, $5.6 million of which went to Didion Mills to significantly expand its corn milling and ethanol production.
The US Environmental Protection Agency had already referred to Didion as “a high priority violator” that had violated the federal Clean Water Act many times in 2008-2009, using excessive amounts of chlorine and other chemicals that found their way into water systems nearby.
When Didion Mills applied for the corn gas stimulus package, US officials overseeing the grants did not ask about previous environmental or OSHA safety violations.

After Gretchen and I built our home in the town of Onalaska some 26 years ago, we learned, to our surprise, that the town was embroiled in a dispute with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on how to deal with water pollution from a town landfill on Brice Prairie.
The landfill had been dug close to the Black River decades earlier and residues from discarded solvents and pesticides — included in the trash that filled the pit before it was closed — seeped through the porous soils into the groundwater.
Eventually the landfill was declared a Superfund site and all of the landowners in the town paid a surcharge (we paid $200 a year for 10 years) on our tax bills to pay our share of the cleanup costs.
This news came to some 2,000 property owners in the western part of the towns of Onalaska and Holland who depend on private wells for their water in the form of a warning from the La Crosse County Health Department.
Nitrate and coliform contamination can be caused by malfunctioning septic systems, manure and human waste spreading and excess fertilizer use.
Both nitrate and coliform contamination constitute a human health risk at levels in excess of levels set as safe by regulators.
The warning was triggered after the county received data it demanded from the DNR last August following the report by the Legislative Audit Bureau critical of DNR’s enforcement of pollution discharge permits.
Why, the county is left to wonder, didn’t the DNR alert the county and the home owners of the risk?
Without the aggressive county response to the audit, we’d still be in the dark about the risk.
DNR bears much of the responsibility for fixing Wisconsin’s water issues.

DNR to provide clean drinking water for contaminated wells.
LUXEMBURG, Wis. (WLUK) — The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is planning to provide clean drinking water to people whose wells are contaminated by manure runoff.
So Wagner and his family drink bottled water.
“I only get one gallon of water per hour,” Wagner told us As a Kewaunee County Board member, Wagner is happy to hear about the DNR’s program to provide clean water to his constituents dealing with similar struggles.
Wagner told FOX 11 he can’t benefit from the DNR’s program because the water that comes out of his well is only contaminated with nitrates, not bacteria.
We still haven’t found any bacteria, which is a good thing,” he explained.
Wagner said this is a good step, but: “How come this didn’t come out sooner?”
In statement, the DNR said several programs worked together to take this step as quickly as possible.
The DNR will only provide clean water for six months.
That year-old program is for people with contaminated wells in the Kewaunee and southern Door County area.

 

With livestock contamination of drinking water a growing concern in Wisconsin, the Department of Natural Resources has quietly started efforts to provide temporary water supplies to people with tainted wells. The DNR posted an update on its website in April that said it would provide temporary emergency drinking water when tests show that a water supply is contaminated and is likely due to groundwater contaminated by manure, a person on the property contracts a water-borne illness or there is a sudden change in color or odor of well water, Two environmental groups issued statements Tuesday announcing the state initiative. Afterward, the DNR said in a statement the agency used aspects from several programs under existing law to set up the water program. It also notified authorities in Kewaunee County, where well contamination has been most severe. The program’s low-key rollout on a high-profile issue perplexed environmental groups who say the agency has been reluctant to criticize the farm community over manure spreading. “This relief…