Those of you who live year round in Door County must pay more attention to the growing contamination of our water supplies. The ongoing development of land with high density housing and commercial businesses is a threat to the purity of our drinking water and health. The twin pincer movement of condo/resort and commercial development are brewing an irreversible threat to our water quality and will ultimately cause serious health problems.
Three interrelated factors are at play in this insidious poisoning of our drinking water. First is the geological nature of Door County that is characteristic of the Silurian Dolomite that underlies most of the 491 square miles of Door County. This bedrock, called Silurian Dolomite because of the geological period during which it formed, is now visible wherever we go in Door County because of glacial action that exposed it many thousands of years ago. Chemically this bedrock is a form of calcium magnesium bicarbonate, not unlike the ingredients found in Alka Seltzer. But there the analogy ends. The Door County bedrock will not help alleviate aches and pains, but instead contributes to the vulnerability of our aquifers to ground water contamination.
All water that we get from our faucets in Door County has its origin in aquifers that are located in the bedrock at depths of up to about 2,000 feet. Wells need not go this deep since shallower bedrock has abundant water entrapped and available to be extracted. This availability is a great benefit to all. However, it will remain a benefit only if we protect the purity of the water that is extracted. The entrapment of water in the bedrock is vulnerable to contamination because the bedrock is not a continuous unbroken mass, but a very fragmented and fractured assemblage of rocks that resemble the remnants of a broken ceramic dish that has shattered and that we attempted to salvage with glue.The cracks in our Door County bedrock are passage ways that permit the entry of contaminants carried by ground water, rain, and melting snow into the subterranean aquifers. Any and all contaminants are transported along the cracked network of Silurian Dolomite into the water that becomes our next drink our bath or bowl of soup or the water in our tomato plant or whatever you use or consume that has been part of the Door County bedrock water.
The second factor at play is our own doing. We are responsible for the contamination that enters the aquifers through the cracks in the bedrock. We allow the destruction of natural habitats that tend to filter and collect some of the contaminants that we create. We allow the packing of homes, condos, and resorts so close to one another that all runoff from storm waters spills over contaminated lawns, concrete, asphalt, sidewalks, and other impervious surfaces and then into the bedrock fissures down into the aquifers. Take a look at any street or parking lot to see the residual oily mess, cigarette butts, and other waste. Go to any garden supply store to see the toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that we apply to lawns and golf club greens indiscriminately. Consider the paints and liquid cleaners that we dispose of in our sinks or that go into landfills. These types of substances that we use will enter our water supplies and our bodies.
As we dispose of household waste we generate a stream of contaminants that will either end up in a landfill (sometimes as incinerated remains), in a septic system, or in a municipal sewerage treatment plant. The waste in landfills will provide a stream of contaminant caused by a leaching process over time. Treated sewerage generates sludge and contaminated waste water. The sludge contains human waste, and residues of all the toxic chemicals that are in the sewerage input. The sludge sometimes incinerated and put in a landfill or spread as a gooey sludge in a landfill. Leaching of contaminants from both sources is inevitable. The sludge generated in Door County is removed from Door Count and handled elsewhere for others to be more concerned about. The liquid effluent is another matter. In Door County we have several municipal treatment plants. They all discharge the treated, but contaminated, effluent into Green Bay. Many millions of gallons of treated liquid effluent are discharged daily into Green Bay just by Door County Sewerage plants. Other plants discharge much more contaminated effluent into Green Bay daily. The Green Bay Municipal Sewerage Plant discharges about 30 million gallons a day into Green Bay water.
The contaminant that are discharged into the bay, including residual coliform bacteria, toxic chemicals, and phosphates and nitrogen-bearing compounds progressively contaminates the Green Bay water. Evaporation from the water surfaces and redeposition on land in the form of rain, snow or fog provides the pathway to recontaminate our drinking water. Even if your water is supplied by a municipal water treatment plant you are getting contaminated water out of you faucets. There are 119 regulated chemicals that the municipal water treatment plants must provide an annual snapshot type of report. There are however hundreds, if not thousands of other contaminants, that need not be reported nor are analyzed.
As continuous, seemingly unrestrained development continues in Door County our water supplies will become increasingly contaminated. We who live here year round will be the primary victims of this reckless action of contamination. We can help slow the attack on our health and well being by telling the zoning gurus and politicians that we have had enough of their indiscriminate development plans. We can also reduce our use of toxic chemicals and products. Read the label before you buy and use a product. Avoid toxic products. Let your garden grow naturally without using herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides unless absolutely necessary. Avoid the use of high nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers, and use only natural organic materials.
We can help slow the contamination of our water supplies in Door County by being pro active. Speak out against over development and the inevitable added contamination it creates. We cannot change the geology of Door County, so focus upon your choices that will reduce your individual contaminating actions. Spread the word so that we can all live with purer water for better health.
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Zeep
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