April 5, 2021 - Introduced by Senators Cowles, Marklein, Felzkowski, Ballweg
and Feyen, cosponsored by Representatives Kitchens, Thiesfeldt, Krug,
Armstrong, Cabral-Guevara, Duchow, Edming, James, Knodl, Kurtz,
Loudenbeck, Moses, Mursau, Oldenburg, Petryk, Rozar, Snyder,
Swearingen, Tranel, Wittke and Zimmerman. Referred to Joint Committee
on Finance.

This bill requires the governor to allocate funds accepted under the federal
American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) for certain environmental purposes.

Under current law, the Department of Administration and the Department of
Natural Resources administer the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program (SDWLP),
which provides low-interest loans and grants in the form of principal forgiveness to
municipalities for drinking water infrastructure projects to help them comply with
federal drinking water standards. DNR establishes a funding list for SDWLP
projects, and DOA allocates funding for those projects. The current program does not
provide financial assistance to private users of public water systems.

The bill requires the governor to allocate $40,000,000 of the ARPA funds
received by the state to provide, under SDWLP, principal forgiveness to
municipalities to 1) cover up to 50 percent of the costs of lead service line replacement
on private property or 2) provide grants to private users of public water systems to
cover up to 50 percent of the costs of lead service line replacement on private property.

Under current law, DNR administers a program to provide financial assistance
for projects that manage urban storm water and runoff. The bill requires the

governor to allocate $12,000,000 of the ARPA funds received by the state to this
program.

Under current law, DNR administers a program to provide financial assistance
for projects that control pollution that comes from diffuse sources, rather than from
a single concentrated discharge of pollution, in areas that qualify as high priority due
to water quality problems. The bill requires the governor to allocate $6,500,000 of
the ARPA funds received by the state to this program.

Under the well compensation grant program under current law, certain
individual owners or renters of certain contaminated private wells may apply for a
grant from DNR to cover a portion of the costs to treat the water, reconstruct the well,
construct a new well, connect to a public water supply, or fill and seal the well. The
bill requires the governor to allocate $2,000,000 of the ARPA funds received by the
state to this program.

The bill requires DNR to create and administer a program to provide grants to
counties to either 1) test and map privately owned wells to assess groundwater
quality and to determine the extent and type of any contamination and study and
map geologic characteristics and well construction practices in the county to
determine any correlation between water quality, geology, and well construction; or
2) if a county has completed this type of study, to notify the public of the results of
the study and to notify private well owners whose wells may be contaminated based
on the results of the completed study. Under the bill, DNR may not provide more than
$10,000 to any single county for testing and study under the first type of grant, or
more than $2,500 per county for notifications under the second type of grant.
Counties may apply for a grant individually or as a group. The bill requires a county
that receives a grant under this program to provide an equal amount of matching
funds. The county must also share the results of its testing with the Center for
Watershed Science and Education, but may not include any personally identifiable
information with the submitted results.