{"id":2007,"date":"2013-04-16T22:30:11","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T03:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/?p=2007"},"modified":"2013-04-16T22:30:11","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T03:30:11","slug":"water-waste-in-the-emerald-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/water-waste-in-the-emerald-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Waste in the Emerald City"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dear Common Council Members,<\/span><\/div>\n
Tonight you are being asked to approve plans to drill a new Southeast Side Well (Well #31) at 4401 Tradewinds Pkwy – just S of the Beltline – just W of Beltline-I-90 (Agenda Item 101):<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nhttp:\/\/madison.legistar.com\/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=1323705&GUID=E3395100-8F99-4ACC-BA66-0C65C59D5920#.UWjhiajNA5Q.email<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Please oppose this.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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We oppose it. Because:<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
-The well is not needed.\u00a0Well 9, off Buckeye Road near Stoughton Road, which supplies water to the SE Side, has been down (out of operation) before. The Water Utility has continued to supply water to the SE Side even with Well 9 down–apparently with no problem. A 2nd well for the SE Side is not a priority we can afford right now.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
-While the Water Utility created a Citizen Advisory Panel (CAP) to consider a new SE Side well; the SE Side CAP approved going ahead. But the CAP recognized the problem with siting a well in this area (pollution, low volume well output, etc.), and so actually suggested siting it up at Felland Rd.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
-This area is notorious for low productivity wells, even by Water Utility estimates. You won’t get what you want in terms of water volumes. This will end up being an expensive boondogle at ratepayers’ expense.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
-There is a significant TCE (industrial toxins) groundwater plume from GE Medical in the I-90–Femrite area. The TCE plume is headed right for the new well (by Water Utility’s own analysis). Pumping this new deep well will almost certainly pull the TCE further, faster towards the new well, again by Water Utility’s own admission.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
-The Utility’s financial priority should be:<\/span><\/div>\n
a. Cleaning up the significant water quality problems at our existing wells. (Why are we digging new wells when we can’t even properly manage the wells we already have?)<\/span><\/div>\n
b. More rapid payback of City property taxpayers for a ‘loan’ of property tax money to the Utility;
\n<\/span><\/div>\n
c. Increasing the rate of replacement of leaky old pipe throughout the City (this would actually provide much of the volume the Utility is seeking;\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
d. Institute a progressive rate structure that creates strong incentives to use less water.<\/span><\/div>\n
e. Use the profits from the higher rates on water wasters to provide rebates to water users who install water conservation measures.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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There is a lot of science denial going on at the Water Utility right now. You could bring a strong dose of reality there by voting against the well. You are, after all, the corporate board of directors of this publicly owned utility. You have the fiduciary responsibility to keep the utility from wasting citizen’s financial resources.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Again, we adamantly oppose the approval of a new well proposed in Agenda Item 101.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Sincerely,<\/span><\/div>\n
Michael D. Barrett and Pamela S. Barrett<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
P.s. You have permission to forward this anywhere, to anyone.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Madison Water Utility continues its boondogling ways–at ratepayers’ expense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[760,5,56,12],"tags":[1167,1168,85,902,1166,1143,1111,1153],"class_list":["post-2007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","category-health","category-madison-politics","tag-boondogle","tag-city-of-madison-commom-council","tag-madison-water-utility","tag-paul-soglin","tag-progressive-rate-structure","tag-science-denial","tag-tce","tag-tom-heikkenen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2012,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions\/2012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}