St. Croix County has areas of high concentrations of nitrates in well water. If you live in these areas, it is recommended that you screen your well water regularly. Test kits are available through St. Croix County Public Health, Land and Water Conservation Department (Baldwin) and at Community Development Office in Hudson. Water testing is also available through UW Stevens Point .

How does St. Croix County’s nitrate levels compare to other Wisconsin counties? The red circled county is St. Croix. Just north is Polk, south is Pierce and west is Dunn County.

The Wisconsin DNR tracks the status of our waters as required by the Federal Clean Water Act every two years. See impaired waters in red.

Wisconsin’s most beautiful landscapes can be the most vulnerable. Karst is a geological term meaning carbonate bedrock, rock formations composed primarily of limestone or dolomite. These rocks are commonly fractured and dissolved causing toxins or excess manure above ground to easily seep down to the carbonate aquifer thus contaminating important sources of water for rural well owners and businesses.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOS) can pose threats to ground and surface waters when manure storage and spreading is not managed well. Excess manure that is overly spread leads to over nutrification of soil resulting in phosphorus and nitrogen runoff that affects waterway health.

What would the population of people in the St. Croix Watershed be if we measured the current animal waste in human population.