
A Wisconsin Water Resources Institute project is exploring how bacteria and other water contaminants flow through soil by applying a medical technology usually used for cancer imaging.
Chris Zahasky, assistant professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, received two years of funding to study soil types in the two most vulnerable geologic settings in Wisconsin for groundwater pollution. Those are the Central Sands district, which features sandy soil, and Kewaunee County along Lake Michigan, which features fractured bedrock. Zahasky is investigating how E. coli bacteria – one of the main water contaminants in Wisconsin – percolates through the soil and ends up polluting groundwater and people’s private wells.