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What's New
On Tuesday May 2nd, SB76 passed through the Assembly and is now on the Governor’s desk awaiting a signature. There is a great deal of misinformation about what this bill does and what current law allows in regards to high capacity well issues.
First of all this bill has nothing to do with the proposed Saratoga dairy project, it will not allow additional wells to be drilled, it doesn’t even authorize any additional pumping with any existing wells. As I described in floor debate this week, this bill allows existing well owners to repair broken wells that were already permitted. If a crop is in the field and a well mechanically fails a farmer can replace that well on site, repair the well, or relocate within 75 feet of the existing well. A well casing that cracks can cause contamination to groundwater and we want farmers to make those repairs as quick as possible.
They can transfer the well to a new owner as well, all permit restrictions remain in place. A new owner cannot take an irrigation well and turn into a water bottling well. The permit restricts the amount of use and the type of use. The repair, replace, reconstruct and transfer are all current practice and we set into law current DNR practice. Again, no new withdrawal is granted or allowed.
Every year under current law DNR maintain the right to review every well under ss 281.34(7). They can rescind permits, they can modify permits. That doesn’t change in this bill.
Finally, and most important to me, this bill creates the Central Sands Optimization Model similar to the model recently completed on the Little Plover River. This model will help us determine which wells near which bodies of water are causing drawdowns (even as they operate within their permit). The most significant drawdown areas in the Central Sands are in the Ten Mile and Fourteen Mile creek watersheds. This area covers bodies of water in Plainfield to the river through the Rome area and from the Almond area lakes down through the Hancock area. It is a large area and we have attached a map here for your viewing as well.
The misinformation campaign by several area groups make this sound like a massively different bill than it is. I am happy to sit down with anyone and walk through the actual bill.
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