The Cogeneration plant on the west side of the UW campus is allowed to withdraw large amounts of water from Lake Mendota, based on a complicated swap agreement with DNR.
The Cogen Plant.Power plants are the largest user of water, after agriculture.
That agreement called for an infiltration field at the Odana Hills Golf Course, where up to 60 million gallons a year of stormwater are pumped into the soil.
One of the problems with this agreement is that the water being pumped into the soil is rather salty, due to overuse of road salt in the area. Several test wells in the area show levels of salt over the Enforcement Standard. In other words, the groundwater is starting to become polluted with salt. More
History and explanation of the Odana project
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