The Daily Reporter – WI Construction News & Bids Wisconsin's Construction Authority
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The state Department of Natural Resources board is poised to move forward on extensive rewrites of Wisconsin’s water-pollution regulations in a step that could cost well-users, farmers and wastewater treatment plants millions of dollars.
The department has proposed restricting the use of manure in areas prone to pollution; establishing limits for polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking and surface water; and extending the state’s groundwater quality standards to more substances.
The board is expected to schedule hearings on scope statements on all those plans during a meeting Wednesday. After the hearings are completed, the board will be able to authorize the department to start writing the regulations.
The board is also expected to approve permanent regulations that would use e. coli, rather than fecal coliform, as an indicator of bacterial contamination of water bodies.
Since N-waste (urine and proteins) are not treated under the federal CWA, while it robs oxygen and is a fertilizer for alga, one wonders if it is now required to be treated? Although EPA claims that Congress intended this, the real reason is a faulty applied test, when it established sewage treatment requirements and in fact only required 50% sewage treatment. Correcting this test would would finally make it possible to establish how sewage is treated and compare all the different types of sewage treatment plants and their cost-benefits. That itself woukd be surprising!