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In April, a woman in Green Lake County was driving three passengers on a UTV when she took a curve too quickly. The vehicle rolled and hit a tree head-on. One passenger died at the scene and a second just days later. The 26-year-old driver’s blood alcohol concentration was three times the legal limit, according to the police report.

So far this year, 18 people have died in fatal crashes on off-road vehicles like ATVs and UTVs statewide, according to data reported by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The latest reported fatality was June 13, when a 71-year-old ATV driver collided with a UTV while both vehicles were cresting a hill. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Alcohol was involved in at least four of the deaths reported so far in 2026. Blood alcohol results are still pending in 11 of those fatalities.

Riding off-road vehicles is becoming an increasingly popular pastime in Wisconsin. The total number of registrations for these vehicles has increased by about 20% since 2020, according to the state DNR.

Crashes and fatalities are also on the rise. Drugs and alcohol are involved in about half of those crashes, said Jacob Holsclaw, an off-highway vehicle administrator for the DNR.

“In a lot of those cases, if the folks had not been drinking and driving, they may even still be alive today,” he said. “I think that’s an important thing to remember.”

Forty-two people died in a crash on an ATV or UTV last year, a 90% increase since 2015, according to DNR data. There were 300 total crashes reported in 2025, about a 45% increase from 10 years ago. A rise in the number of UTV crashes significantly contributed to that increase. About 30% of the fatalities in 2025 involved alcohol or THC, and toxicology results are pending for a handful of those fatalities.

In recent years, municipalities have opened more roads to ATVs and UTVs across the state. All-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, often seat just one passenger and are steered by handlebars like a motorcycle. Utility-terrain vehicles, or UTVs, allow the passenger and driver to sit side-by-side, and drivers control the vehicle with a steering wheel. UTVs are generally larger and often include a partially enclosed cabin that can seat four.

Drivers of both vehicles can now operate them across more than 65,000 miles of roadway. Unlike snowmobiles, ATVs and UTVs aren’t as weather-dependent and can be used all year, especially during mild winters. In some communities, it’s normal for people to use their recreational vehicles for everyday errands. Holsclaw said the pandemic also contributed to the upward trend in their use.

With more people using off-road vehicles, more people will get hurt, he said. The tires aren’t designed for pavement, and the vehicles handle differently than cars, another reason “it’s really important that folks are driving sober,” Holsclaw said. Riders tipped or rolled their machines in more than half of the fatal crashes last year.

Driving an ATV or UTV while drunk and on property open to the public is illegal in Wisconsin. Even if drivers don’t exceed the 0.08 limit, they can be stopped, cited and arrested if law enforcement believes they are impaired, Holsclaw said. It’s about coordination and reaction time, he said. But the penalties are lighter than for cars.

Drivers convicted of a first offense for operating an off-road vehicle while intoxicated – a civil forfeiture and not a crime – would pay a $450 fine, Holsclaw said.

“It is a fair amount less than the motor vehicle world,” Holsclaw said. “It is unfortunate that the fines are lower because it almost sends the message that an OWI is not as important.”

A first offense for an OWI in a motor vehicle comes with about a $700 bill and a license revocation.

But regulating alcohol use in the recreational vehicle world is different, Holsclaw said. Some people don’t want to be told what to do. And in Wisconsin, drinking is a part of the culture. 

“That’s all well and good as long as you’re not operating a vehicle,” Holsclaw said.

The state DNR’s power to tighten gaps in law is limited.

Its most recent batch of regulations, which went into effect June 1, closed a loophole by requiring both passengers and operators in UTVs to wear seat belts. Taken literally, state law had only required passengers to wear them. Even still, the DNR can’t change the fact that an OWI from an ATV or UTV doesn’t affect your driver’s license, Holsclaw said. If it did, maybe that would keep people from driving drunk.

More substantive change “comes down to the state representatives,” Holsclaw said. “They’re the ones that have to make that decision.”

Waiting for ‘a new day in Madison’

Lawmakers in Madison have tried and failed to toughen state law that regulates the overlap between alcohol use and recreational vehicles. Both Democratic and Republican legislators say the Tavern League, the state’s influential beer lobby, has stymied serious progress.

When it comes to drinking and driving cars and ATVs, “Wisconsin has among the worst laws in the country,” said state Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee. 

Larson – who said he lost a good friend in a head-on collision with a repeat drunk driver when he was in high school – believes special interests like the Tavern League have helped keep things the way they are. 

The league did not respond to requests for comment.

At the moment, if a person gets a first OWI on an ATV and soon after gets a first OWI while driving a snowmobile, the courts treat them both as first offenses.

“They don’t talk to each other,” Holsclaw said.

OWIs for automobiles also accumulate separately.

In 2019, a bipartisan band of legislators tried to change how this works. If they had succeeded, the person in the earlier scenario would instead have a first- and second-offense OWI, the latter of which is a misdemeanor. The bill would also have restricted people from operating recreational vehicles like snowmobiles, boats or UTVs if their driver’s license was currently suspended because of a normal OWI.

But the bill failed. When lawmakers resurrected the attempt in 2021, it died again.

The 2021 bill passed seamlessly out of its committee in the state Senate, Larson said, but then stalled for nine months and eventually died.

“That’s unfortunately the power of some special interests who don’t want to change the law,” Larson said, “but I think that they are coming out of power.”

The senator said he believes the influence of organizations like the Tavern League will fade in parallel with the Republican majority, which must now face competitive political maps it didn’t draw for the first time in nearly two decades. 

The powerful lobbying organization that advocates for bar owners did not register in opposition to the 2021 bill, according to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission website. Instead, Larson said the organization often works through long-established expectations that lawmakers won’t advance bills related to drunk driving.

“There’s just an agreement that they know they don’t have to lift a finger or do anything, but the Republicans are beholden to that interest group,” Larson said.

But not all Republicans. State Sen. André Jacque, a Republican from the Green Bay area who is retiring at the end of the year, also worked on the 2021 bill and similarly criticizes how the Tavern League operates. He said it exercised its “silent veto” to put the 2021 bill to sleep.

“I would argue that in some cases there are groups that fail to indicate the actions that they have taken to stop legislation,” Jacque said, referencing how the state requires lobbyists to register with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission and report their activity.

The fight isn’t over, though. Under the right circumstances, Jacque said, the bill could return. He said law enforcement wants tougher laws. Other states already have them.

In Minnesota, a first offense for driving an off-road vehicle while impaired is a crime that could result in up to a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail. In Wisconsin, the same offense results in a fine but no jail time. Unlike in Minnesota, your driver’s license won’t be affected if you get busted for driving an ATV or UTV while drunk in Wisconsin.

More recently, Wisconsin lawmakers tried to ban having open containers of alcohol in or on off-road vehicles. No groups registered in opposition to the bipartisan bill, but it failed in April 2024. 

That bill would have been relevant in the fatal crash in Green Lake County where law enforcement found empty containers of alcohol strewn about the crash site.

Larson said people want common-sense drunk driving laws in Wisconsin.

“It’s going to be a new day in Madison,” Larson said.

The Badger Project is an independent, reader-supported news nonprofit in Wisconsin.

This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

With ATV crashes up in Wisconsin, some legislators want to strengthen OWI laws. The Tavern League stands in the way. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A coalition of more than 200 business owners from throughout the Great Lakes region is calling on the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy to reject permits for Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel pipeline, urging other business owners to sign on to a joint letter opposing the project.

Line 5 stretches from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario, with a four-mile segment of dual pipelines located on the lakebed within the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. 

In its call for support, the Great Lakes Business Network pointed to a recent spill of up to 1,900 gallons of drilling fluid in Wisconsin as part of Enbridge’s effort to reroute Line 5. The project came after a federal judge found the company had trespassed on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation for more than a decade by continuing to operate the pipeline following the expiration of its easement.

Enbridge Spokesperson Ryan Duffy told Michigan Advance the company reported the release of the clay and water mixture used for drilling to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on Saturday, and that it had been contained using sandbags and silt fence and that the cleanup is well underway.  

“We will continue to work with the DNR on completion of the clean-up,” Duffy said in an emailed statement. 

Wisconsin Public Radio reported concerns from the Bad River Band and environmental advocates that the release violates Enbridge’s waterway and wetland permit, with one condition stating the company “shall not discharge drilling mud into wetlands, waterways or sensitive areas.”

The Bad River Band has also challenged the reroute, noting that the pipeline would still encircle the reservation and threaten waters, fish and wild rice, which are culturally sacred and economically critical to its members.

Tribal communities and environmental advocates have called for a shutdown of the more than 70-year-old pipeline for years, pointing to a series of anchor strikes which dented the pipeline, and the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill from Enbridge’s Line 6B as among their reasons for concern.

While Enbridge has agreed to replace the two segments of pipeline with a new segment housed within a tunnel embedded within the bedrock beneath the lakebed, opponents have raised their further concerns with the safety of the tunnel project, including unstable bedrock, high water pressure and the presence of gasses that could lead to an explosion.

Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community previously told Michigan Advance the tunnel would bore through several cultural sites, archaeological resources and what Anishinaabe consider to be the site of creation.

In order to move forward, the tunnel project is in need of permits from the United States Army Corps of Engineers and EGLE. Another vital permit granted by the Michigan Public Service Commission is under review by the Michigan Supreme Court, following challenges from tribal communities and several environmental advocacy groups.

While Enbridge has touted support from businesses in the region, the Great Lakes Business Network has rejected that notion, calling all business owners and leaders who care about the Great Lakes to submit their signatures by the close of business on July 2.

“We cannot stand by while a Canadian oil company claims to speak for our business community,” Great Lakes Business Network Co-Chairs, Pete Laing and Travis Hixton said in a statement. “The Great Lakes are our economic engine supporting tourism, shipping, real estate, and countless jobs. A decade of destruction to our bottomlands for an unnecessary tunnel is bad for business and bad for our future.”

Following the Great Lakes Business Network’s call for signatures, Great Lakes Michigan Jobs, which says it represents more 75,000 Michigan businesses, issued its own statement calling on EGLE to renew Enbridge’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

If reissued, the permit would allow Enbridge to release roughly 6 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Great Lakes per day between two facilities located on the north and south sides of the straits.

“We strongly support Line 5 and the Great Lakes Tunnel and urge EGLE to renew the permit to allow tunnel builders to treat and clean wastewater,” Mike Witkowski, the director of environmental and regulatory policy at the Michigan Manufacturers Association, said in a statement.

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• Wisconsin has fewer remaining lead water pipelines than previous estimates, suggesting officials may be able to eliminate them faster and at lower cost than expected.
• New inventory requirements have given regulators and utilities their clearest picture yet of where lead pipes remain and where more investigation is needed.
• Federal regulators now require water systems to replace all lead service lines by the end of 2037 because no level of lead exposure is considered safe, especially for children.
• More than 181,000 Wisconsin service lines (12% statewide) are still classified as unknown because many communities lack complete records and must verify pipe materials through inspections and outreach.
• Federal infrastructure funding has provided major support for lead line replacement projects across Wisconsin, but officials expect available funding to decrease in the coming years.

Wisconsin may be closer than previously thought to eliminating lead water pipes. About 164,000 municipal and community lead water service lines still need replacement with safer materials, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of water system data reported in April. That’s roughly one of every 10 municipal and community water lines statewide. 

The estimate includes confirmed lead lines — roughly 146,000 across 137 municipal and community water systems — and an estimated share of service lines with unknown materials that are statistically likely to contain lead, based on EPA methodology.

Some data gaps remain, including some water systems that did not file a report on time.

Still, the total is far below previous government estimates as more complete inventories more clearly show where lead pipes remain, part of a nationwide effort to reduce exposure to the toxic metal linked to serious health risks.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 2025 — before many water systems completed or updated their inventories — that nearly 180,000 water lines in Wisconsin were made of lead, a sharp drop from its 2023 estimate of over 256,000.

“We may be able to remove all (lead service lines) faster, fully, and forever – sooner and at a lower price tag than expected,” Erica Galante-Johnson, senior lead service line replacement policy analyst at Environmental Policy Innovation Center, wrote in a report comparing the lead service line estimate before and after new inventory data became available. 

Why replace lead service lines?

Once a popular material for water service lines, lead was banned by regulators for such purposes in Wisconsin and nationwide beginning in the 1980s due to concerns about potential lead exposure. 

“There is no safe level of exposure to lead,” the EPA’s website says. 

Children are especially vulnerable to lead, since even low levels of exposure can lead to behavioral and learning problems. High levels of lead in blood can cause seizures, coma or death. Adults exposed to lead are more susceptible to cardiovascular and kidney problems.

Water systems limit risk by treating pipes with chemicals that reduce corrosion, but failures such as Flint, Michigan’s crisis a decade ago show how those safeguards can break down, exposing residents to lead. 

That’s why federal regulators now require aggressive replacement timelines. 

Municipal and community water systems must replace all lead or galvanized pipes before the end of 2037. Some Wisconsin cities, like Madison and Stoughton, have already replaced all lead pipes. Many others, including Eau Claire, Milwaukee and Wausau, have projects underway to replace them at no or low cost to homeowners.

At least 29 municipalities in Wisconsin have received more than $159 million through 2025 to replace lead service lines through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed by then-President Joe Biden.

The EPA in May announced an additional $94.3 million Wisconsin allocation under the 2021 law. 

Biden’s EPA revised its Lead and Copper Rule, tightening monitoring requirements and establishing  timelines for replacing lead pipes. 

The first step: requiring water systems to document what’s underground.

More complete information helps identify where lead lines are concentrated, said Ann Hirekatur, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ lead and copper section manager.

The inventories are more than a bureaucratic exercise. Federal rules now tie them directly to replacement requirements.

Wisconsin water systems previously needed only to report estimates of their lead service lines to the state Public Service Commission.

Biden’s EPA changed that. Water systems were required to submit an initial inventory by October 2024, listing the best available information about each water line. That gave DNR officials line-by-line records for the first time, Hirekatur said.

By Nov. 1, 2027, water systems must improve those records by trying to identify service lines of currently unknown material and documenting connector materials. After that deadline, any service lines with an unknown material will be treated as lead, and water systems must start replacing at least 10% of lead lines under their control each year. 

The new regulations require digging through historical documents — or even digging up pipelines one by one — to confirm the material and location. 

The more rigorous process revealed more lead service lines in some communities than previously thought. That includes Whitefish Bay, which documented more than 56% of service lines as lead during the first draft of its inventory.

Locating pipelines can be challenging

Despite the new inventories, regulators still have yet to identify the materials in more than 181,000 Wisconsin service lines, or 12% of all statewide.

As of April, 312 of 610 Wisconsin municipal water systems identified materials in every service line. About 60% of systems recorded 5% or fewer pipelines as unknown material. 

Meanwhile, 102 municipal water systems reported more than half of their lines as unknown, with 12 yet to submit inventories. 

“Some systems kept good records, and some systems don’t have any records at all,” Hirekatur said.

Water system managers must show their work in documenting the makeup of service lines. 

The best evidence is a “tap card” that describes the pipe’s primary features and installation history.

But many communities never preserved those records because they were not required to do so.

The city of Lancaster illustrates that challenge. Water system officials started looking for lead pipes in the 1990s, and they initially found only two and about 50 others whose material was unknown. But the DNR initially marked more than 1,700 out of the city’s 1,845 lines as unknown because the verification documentation fell short of standards.

The utility didn’t save old paper inspection records, said John Hauth and Jamie McCartney, the retiring and incoming directors of public works, respectively.

Calling DNR representatives “very helpful,” Hauth said his inventory is now getting into “pretty good shape.” 

“We send it to them, they will highlight areas and send it back and say, ‘OK, well, you know you need to explain this better, or you need to match this up,’” Hauth said.

Gathering evidence

At the DNR’s suggestion, Hauth and McCartney used construction records to rule out neighborhoods built after lead was banned from new pipeline construction and found water meter replacement records to fill in some blanks.  

The managers submitted a revised draft, still under DNR review, that labeled fewer than 400 service lines as unknown. The city plans to verify the remaining resident-owned lines through door-to-door visits and use hydro-excavation equipment to check city-owned lines.

“We’ve only got the few that we know of,” Hauth said. “I think it’s gonna be manageable.” 

Josh Hyndman, Mount Horeb’s former water system manager, also has experience with thin documentation. The village started replacing lead pipes in 2011 and compiled its inventory as early as 2021 to apply for a DNR lead line replacement grant.

“We went down into our basement and started pulling out all the old records,” Hyndman said. “ I found a construction date that was from January of ’78, and it spelled out that everything would be three-quarter-inch copper for all businesses.”

That helped Hyndman determine that all service lines installed after 1978 were copper, reducing the number his team had to inspect or excavate.

In 2024, Hyndman left Mount Horeb for a job in Whitewater. Mount Horeb now has just one lead service line remaining, beneath a vacant lot. He said the inventory process was much easier in Whitewater because the city maintains comprehensive records for each line. As of April, Whitewater had 16 lead service lines and plans to replace all but one serving an abandoned water tower by the end of 2027.

Most unknown service lines are located on the private side of the water system, Cathy Wunderlich said. She is project manager and principal technologist with the engineering firm Jacobs, which the DNR contracted through 2028 to help local water systems finish their inventories. The service is free, with the costs covered by a federal grant.

Lead and copper are rarely used for water lines over two inches in diameter, so they’re more commonly used in private-side pipes instead of the public side, Wunderlich explained. 

Although municipal water systems do not own the private side of service lines, they must document them. That requires permission and access from property owners. 

A more cost-effective approach encourages residents to submit evidence, said Shawn Kerachsky, CEO of Community Infrastructure Partners, which used federal grants to contract with Wausau and Racine to inventory and replace the lead lines.

“This is not an engineering and construction problem,” Kerachsky said. “It’s a public health issue that happens to be solved through very simple engineering and construction, but world-class communication outreach and logistical planning.”

His company promoted the “Equiflow” campaign when helping Wausau complete its inventory — partnering with local organizations to encourage residents to identify their water lines by uploading photos or allowing technicians to inspect them. The approach helped Wausau reduce its share of unknown service lines to about 30%. 

The DNR also offers grants to help water systems educate residents about inventory and replacement projects.

What’s next?

Water systems will ultimately use the data to apply for federal grants and loans to fund lead service line replacements. 

“We encourage water systems to replace them as soon as possible, because it’s in the best interest of public health,” Hirekatur said. “Right now, there’s more money available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, and once that gets used up, there’ll be a lot less funding available.”

The DNR will announce which projects it will select for federal pipeline replacement funds by year’s end. The program offers loans with a 0.25% interest rate, far below market rates, and principal forgiveness. The department expects to have some funding available in 2028, but much less than previous years.

Wisconsin’s lead pipe count is falling. But the search isn’t over. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Riders of all-terrain vehicles in Wisconsin have some new requirements after new rules took effect at the start of this month.

Changed rules include include prohibitions against towing objects with people onboard, restrictions on window tinting — and a seat belt requirement.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said under the new law “ALL occupants of a UTV including the driver and passengers have to wear a seat belt.”

These regulations were approved by a unanimous vote of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, which updated the administrative codes.

Wisconsin has seen a surge in ATV and UTV activity in the past few years and an accompanying increase in fatal crashes.

As of January, the DNR reported more than 528,000 registrations for the trail-ready vehicles. The Wisconsin ATV/UTV Association says it has more than 40,000 members and about 130 local chapters across the state.

Randy Harden, the group’s president, said the association was included in talks with lawmakers about the regulation updates. The old ATV/UTV regulations were inconsistent, and behavior seen on trails was also part of the reason for the updated regulations.

A previous version of the law required seat belts, and Harden says its intention was always for it to apply to everyone in a vehicle. But when a rider in southwest Wisconsin challenged a ticket in court, it revealed an inconsistency in the way the policy was worded.

“The judge looked at the wording that was drafted, and it said all passengers must wear a seat belt, (but) didn’t say the driver,” Harden said. “This (new rule) corrects that and says all passengers and the driver must wear a seat belt.”

Last year, there were at least 300 ATV or UTV crashes reported to the DNR, resulting in 277 reported injuries.

“The majority of our serious injury and fatal crashes occur because of occupants choosing to not wear a seat belt or helmet,” said Lt. Jacob Holsclaw, DNR off-highway vehicle administrator.

In 2025 alone, the DNR reported a total of 41 deaths. In 32 of those fatal crashes, the people involved were not wearing seat belts. Only four of those deaths were in vehicles other than a UTV, DNR data shows.

It was the second-deadliest year for Wisconsin UTVs and ATVs on record.

While the new seat belt requirement is clear, advocates are realistic about its use.

“Will everybody do it? Absolutely not,” Harden said. “Does everybody wear their seat belts in the car? No, but that doesn’t mean you stop trying, and that’s really what this effort is.”

The DNR says enforcement will be handled through normal patrols by conservation wardens, sheriff’s offices and police in some areas.

“Officers will often use education and even citations if operators are found in violation of the new laws,” the DNR said in an email with WPR.

 DNR data for 2024 shows 115 citations for operators not wearing seat belts.

Towing, tinting rules among other requirements

Under the new restrictions, it is now illegal for a UTV/ATV to tow people on a roadway or trail. The restriction has exceptions for private lands and on ice while going under 10 miles per hour, the DNR says.

“It excludes if your machine breaks down,” Harden said. “That’s a common sense exclusion,” he said.

Other changes include making it mandatory for riders younger than 18 to have a DOT-approved helmet and requiring eye protection if the machine does not have a windshield. The new law also limits window tinting.

The DNR says there are now fines for causing intentional damage to an ATV/UTV, which could be up to three times as much as the cost to repair it.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Riding an ATV/UTV in Wisconsin? Buckle up, with updated laws is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.