The abundance of water is one reason why Native Americans settled in Wisconsin.

But in recent years, some lakes in central Wisconsin have been drying up and streams have disappeared.

It's been nearly 10 years since Wisconsin Public Television aired the documentary "Water Rich, Water Poor" and if 2009 is any indication, the problem is getting worse.

This week, in Wisconsin, reporter Art Hackett shows you how the drought and new wells are draining the area from Hancock to Stevens Point.

- Art Hackett: Barb Phelps grew up along the Little Plover River, a four-mile long stream near Stevens Point.

- I'm completely emotionally attached to the Little Plover because my grandmother used to take me trout fishing at the 80 that's east of here.

- She still lives next to the stream.

Although there's an automatic flow monitor on her property, she still logs it personally every day at an old manual flow station.

On September 15th, Phelps said the creek had gone dry.

The sand silt in the bottom was just hard.

You could go and you could walk completely up the creek.

There are still trout in the Little Plover, but some of those trout are in Phelps's freezer.

She collected the dead fish not long after her discovery.

I don't know how many other holes there was trout in that the coons ate up before I came home that day.

The Little Plover River may be low, but at least it's still flowing most of the time.

That's not the case just to the south in Waushara County.

Here, Long Lake is long gone.

But we bought our cottage which is right over there in 1973.

Yeah, the water in the lake was really, really nice.

Really clear.

Good, nice fishing.

Butch and Karen Brado say the problem started to show up about five years ago.

Then it just kept going down and down and down and it was gone completely.

It was a shock when we looked out in the fall and everything was gone.

It was kaput.

Like the Germans would say, it was gone.

It was gone.

Today, Long Lake is a prairie.

No longer can you catch trophy bass in its waters, though a Christmas tree farm is developing in the Brado's backyard.

They say they've seen sandhill cranes from time to time.

A mirage perhaps?

This is the town of Oasis.

The town is home to several used-to-be lakes.

Like Long Lake, Plainfield Lake is water-free.

Huron Lake is in the process of drying up.

There was always farmland, always irrigation, but the water level stayed high.

Sometimes it would be a little bit too high for us.

But it didn't get to be an issue until it got down about beyond that point and it never came back up.

Chris Van Houten has a picture from the late 1990s showing him and his daughter pulling a sailboat.

This is the stump of the tree that's in that shot.

It's now about 30 feet from the waterline.

What was your reaction when you first saw that?

Well, it was a surprise and shock a little bit.

Tim Asplund is a water resource specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

He says he was first called to Long Lake in 2006.

People call all the time when there's a drought or there's dry conditions saying, you know, "My lake level, my lake's down, water levels are going down.

You know, what's the reason?"

And you sort of ask and probe a little bit more and usually people are talking about a couple of feet drop.

And that's typical, a lot of these lakes.

Asplund says it's normal because these lakes are seepage lakes.

The water comes from springs feeding water out of the surrounding soil.

They're profoundly affected by prolonged drought.

What I saw was pretty significant decline and something that did cause some concern in terms of, you know, this might be something more than just climate.

And they put in much bigger irrigation systems.

They've added new irrigation systems around here over the last few years and they've killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

You could quit irrigating tomorrow in the whole state and it wouldn't change these lakes one bit.

The debate explains why the central sands are ground zero as Wisconsin reviews its laws on groundwater.

The problem has gotten so bad in some areas.

Abbottsford and Colby are considering a 35-mile long pipeline to Wausau because wells serving those cities are going dry.

The state legislature is reviewing groundwater laws.

Next week, In Wisconsin's Art Hackett explores the role farm irrigation wells are having on the water problem.

And you'll hear from vegetable growers about their concerns over tougher water regulations.

That's next week on In Wisconsin.