time," Fisk said.
   Sam Wiggins, president of the Central Florida Well Drillers As- sociation, asked the Orange Coun-ty Commission in March to cap all
the wells. Why ?
   " Every time it rains, you're flushing Orlando's toilet right into the aquifer. Next time it rains, would you go out to Orange Avenue and dip you a big cup of water out of the street and drink it ? Well that's what's going down these wells."
   The DER plans to spend $2 million in the coming year to study groundwater pollution, including 

governments decided years ago to dig holes in the ground and put plugs in them. Pull the plug and the water goes away. But where it goes and what it does when it gets there is what state and local officials want to find out. ...

Scientists and government officials are only now turning their attention to what they say could be a major threat to the state's underground water supply.
   It is a statewide concern. The Department of Environmental Regulation found a total of 1,226 storm-water drainage wells in 23 of Florida's 67 counties. While wells for storm drainage the greatest potential danger, the DER found another 5,458 wells that carry swimming pool runoff, air conditioning water, laundry wastes,

effluent and industrial wastewater.
   There  is  no   documented   evidence that drainage wells have polluted drinking water, but officials say that's because the few studies that have been done draw an incomplete picture of what one well driller calls " an underground time bomb."

"There's no question that pollu-



Please see AQUIFER   A-8