Portage County Board approves recovery funds for Nelsonville monitoring wells
STEVENS POINT − Nelsonville residents are one step closer to getting monitoring wells to help in their fight for safe drinking water. The Portage County Board voted Tuesday night to fund the monitoring wells with $240,135 in COVID-19 federal recovery funds.
The act required an amendment to a resolution to provide the county's State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to eight other projects that had previously been approved Nov. 28 by the Finance Committee. Supervisor Matthew Jacowski made the amendment adding the monitoring wells project to the funding.
“The reason I’ve brought this amendment this evening is because I’ve sat in this room and I have heard us as a board say that we are for this. And then we realize that maybe we had a flawed scoring process or a couple of scores that were flawed. That’s water under the bridge. That doesn’t matter,” Jacowski said Tuesday. “Let’s get this done and move it forward.”
More:Controversial ratings system changed after Nelsonville monitoring wells lose recovery funds
The amended resolution to fund nine projects with federal recovery funds, for a total of $2,643,469, passed 24 to 1. County Supervisor Scott Soik cast the sole "no" vote.
In 2018, over half of the village of Nelsonville's private wells tested by the Portage County Division of Public Health showed high levels of nitrate contamination. Installing water monitoring wells was proposed as a way to help determine at what depth clean water can be found in Nelsonville, allowing residents to install new private wells with safe water.
The Stevens Point Journal reported last week on the monitoring wells project’s failure to receive an average score of 80 or above on rating score cards to receive approval by the Finance Committee. During the Dec. 12 Finance Committee meeting, the procedure for awarding federal recovery funds was changed to establish the score sheet as a guide for the committee members rather than a driving force behind the approval.
More:Gordondale Farms petitions against DNR order for nitrate monitoring plan
Contact Stevens Point Journal reporter Jennifer Poyer at jpoyer@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Stevens Point Journal: County Board approves recovery funds for Nelsonville monitoring wells
