“What we do now may come back to haunt us in years or in decades.”

[Photo above from Wisconsin State Journal]

If you think the concerns raised in yesterday’s post about skyrocketing Madison and Dane County growth (“Will Madison ever say enough is enough”?) are ill-informed or exaggerated, read what Wisconsin State Journal reporter Ron Seely wrote in May 2006—citing highly respected Wisconsin Geological & Natural History Survey hydrogeologist Ken Bradbury.

Bradbury’s statement in Seely’s article–“What we do now may come back to haunt us in years or in decades“–is a no-brainer, though I would take out the word “may” and insert the word “will.” The evidence is irrefutable. Past city decisions about growth, development, and environmental regulation (or lack thereof) were already haunting us decades ago–showing up in our drinking water–as I described in Madison fouled its own nest, Part I.

The below excerpt is pasted verbatim from Seely’s May 5, 2006 piece, “Pollutant’s threaten Madison’s aquifer” (with a few sentences deleted for brevity).

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The tremendous growth in southern Wisconsin plus the development of industries, which use harmful chemicals, can threaten the aquifer.

Dane County residents are even changing the water cycle here, said Ken Bradbury, a hydrogeologist with the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey who has extensively studied the city’s aquifer.

Studies have shown the water level in the aquifer has dropped nearly 60 feet from historic, predevelopment levels, he said. While it’s unlikely that residents will ever have to worry about a shortage of water, the heavier use has implications for water quality, according to Bradbury and other hydrogeologists.

It used to be that the Madison lakes were replenished by groundwater. Now that cycle has been reversed with municipal wells near the lakes deriving significant quantities of water—roughly 25 percent of the water they draw—from downward leakage from the lakes themselves.

This phenomenon, Bradbury said, basically means that the pollutants put in the lakes, such as pesticides, are likely to also eventually show up in drinking water.

“What we do now,” Bradbury said, “may come back to haunt us in years or in decades.”

How we choose to live can have a significant effect on the quality of the water we drink.

Even when pollutants from factories and other sources in the city of Madison have to leach through layers of soil and stone, they eventually reach the aquifer.

…[F]or almost all of the county’s municipal wells, the groundwater used in Dane County originates within the political boundaries of the county. Meaning, it’s our own pollutants we have to worry about.