Before starting, we suggest you take a quick look through the recommendations below for groundwater planning that come from a recent study of how 79 Wisconsin communities have addressed groundwater in their comprehensive plans:

• Increase citizen awareness (using the county information in the FIND section of this web site) and involvement to heighten the priority of groundwater in local communities;
• Hire local government staff and consultants that value groundwater;
• Provide education to plan commissioners about the costs of groundwater contamination and depletion;
• Provide education to help plan writers better interpret and use groundwater information;
• Improve the accessibility of groundwater data to plan writers;
• Provide funding to support further groundwater studies.

The complete results of the study which includes five case studies about communities who are protecting or cleaning up their groundwater are available at:

http://www.uwsp.edu/cnr/landcenter/groundwater/

If you are not familiar with the Wisconsin planning law and the nine required elements you can learn about them in this report. Guides for each element of the comprehensive plan are available to assist Wisconsin communities.

Now that you have an outline for how to integrate groundwater into your comprehensive plan, sections 2 through 5 in the menu above will provide the details necessary to get it done.

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