Senate Bill 239 / Assembly Bill 874 allows high capacity wells to be rebuilt, moved, repaired, and transferred without any review.  Effectively, the bill allows that permits issues to high capacity wells are PERMANENT.

Wisconsin Trout Unlimited is strongly opposed to permanent high capacity well permits, and is urgently requesting that the Legislature simply create a periodic review schedule for all high capacity wells, JUST LIKE NEARLY EVERY OTHER LICENSE ISSUED BY THE STATE HAS.

No one gets a permanent fishing license.  No one gets a permanent driver's license.  It should be no different for high capacity wells.

Periodically reviewing high capacity well licenses will ensure that everyone -- from agriculture, to business, to municipal water supplies, to hunters and anglers -- has CERTAINTY when it comes to groundwater withdrawals, and will ensure that the billions of dollars of economic impact that water supports in Wisconsin remain intact.

We are urging all of our members to contact their legislators TODAY, and tell them that you oppose SB 239 / AB 874 unless a periodic review schedule is included for high capacity wells as part of the bill.

This bill has now passed the Assembly, so it is imperative that we focus our efforts in the Senate.

Ask them NOT TO SCHEDULE THIS BILL FOR A VOTE IN THE SENATE.

First, please contact Senator Terry Moulton (Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Small Business and Tourism) by clicking here.

Next, please contact Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald by clicking here.

Finally, please contact your own Legislators, which you can find by clicking in the upper right corner here.

This an "all hands on deck moment" for our trout streams.  PLEASE PICK UP THE PHONE, and SEND E-MAILS AS SOON AS YOU CAN.

Thank you for all that you do for Wisconsin TU.