Public policies addressing lead in drinking water have serious holes, as reports from Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism revealed this week. But Wisconsin is also the home of one of the more ambitious lead-mitigation projects in U.S. history.

About 39 percent of Wisconsin's households get their drinking water from private wells while most of the rest of the state's 5.7 million people rely on public utilities for this basic necessity. But utility customers across Wisconsin get their water on very different terms.

Despite all the heavy rain in the first half of December, with flood warnings across parts of the state, Wisconsinites should be thankful they did not experience a downpour on the order of 5 inches in just 24 hours. Such extreme rainfall can cause damaging flooding, severe soil erosion and crop loss.