Water Sector News
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Biosolids in Oneida County: What we know and what we’re still learning
On January 16, the Oneida County Board passed a resolution calling for the Wisconsin DNR to offer PFAS testing of private wells within a six-mile radius of sites where biosolids, sometimes called sludge, have been spread. It was in response to the high levels of PFAS found in private wells in the Town of Stella. No cause of contamination has been found, but the DNR is looking into sludge spreading as a potential cause.
Part of that resolution called for getting data from the DNR on where those sludge spreading sites are in the county. Land-application (or “spreading”) is a common way for wastewater treatment facilities to dispose of the waste left over from the water purification process. Often, the spreading, which has long been legal, occurs on agricultural fields as a type of fertilizer.
WXPR requested historic data on sludge-spreading in Oneida County from the DNR. It’s available here as an Excel spreadsheet. We also uploaded the data to a Google map to visualize the data.