Winneconne cuts ribbon on 'reverse osmosis' system, promising cleaner water

WINNECONNE (WLUK) -- Village leaders held a ribbon cutting and open house Thursday to celebrate Winneconne's new multimillion dollar water filtration system.

It's a project nearly 15 years in the making.

"Back in 2010, the DNR mandated that our water treatment at the time was not meeting the expectations that they had, the standards that they had," Winneconne Village Administrator Logan Fuller explained. "Our water quality had too many contaminants -- specifically, gross alpha, which is a health concern, right?"

Gross alpharadiation is a type of energy released when certain radioactive elements decay or break down. It measures the amount of radiation in drinking water from things like radium, uranium and/or radon.

"So we had to take some action. Problem was, it took some time to generate funds and be able to be in a position that we could go ahead and execute a plan," Fuller continued.

Winneconne's newly upgraded Well House #2 features a state-of-the-art, $5.5 million reverse osmosis system, which the village broke ground on earlier this year. It was funded by a DNR grant and fiscal readjustments.

Reverse osmosis technology removes contaminants and impurities from drinking water. Fuller said Winneconne is just the third community in Wisconsin to have an RO system.

"For a smaller community to be a leader in this is huge. We've already started to get some folks from other communities reach out once they heard what we were doing to see what they could do for theirs," he said.

Fuller said the village is already getting great feedback from residents, who have seen an immediate impact.

"There is a vast difference from what the offering is today than what it was back then. It was kind of a known issue, I guess for a while, as far as from the visual and a taste perspective. So it was great to see that right now, truthfully, we believe that we have the best drinking water in the state of Wisconsin," Fuller said.

Winneconne's RO system will keep the village's water clean and healthy for decades down the road, Fuller said.

"For the foreseeable future, this is going to mitigate future contaminants. Not just the water table but the water that we're pulling from, from time to time, might change, as we see over tens of years. The intent is that 40 years from now, this system is still capable of meeting that demand when all these different variants come out," said Fuller.