Wisconsin still sits at $ 125 million for PFAS cleaning – Great Lakes now

This article, published for the first time here, was reprinted with permission by WisConsin Watch.

By Bennett Goldstein, WisConsin Watch

A year and a half, after Wisconsin’s legislators spent $ 125 million to clean the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, the funds have not yet entered polluted communities.

This is due to a legal and philosophical debate on the boundaries of the government of the government and the potentially severe consequences of the environmental right of decades.

Legislators continue to eliminate the rules to guide who will receive the money, and more importantly, the legal risks for the entities that require it.

The legislative GOP Financing Committee will not transfer the money set to deal with the Wisconsin PFAS problem to the State Department of Natural Resources, so it continues to accumulate interest in a trust fund.

Democratic governor Tony Evers is now trying again – this time, covering an idea written by the Republican legislators with whom he Spari.

Evers’s plans to be included in his forthcoming budget proposal include a cash infusion that expands the balance of the Trust Fund to $ 145 million, along with a provision contained in the PFAS-Authredit bill that imposed veto veto veto last year.

This measure, introduced in 2023 by senator Eric Wimberger, R-OCONTO, created grants for municipalities and owners of PFAS-polluted properties-so called “innocent land owners”-which did not cause their pollution.

It also cut off the DNR force to require cleaning.

But in his new budget offer, Evers hopes to carve what he seems to be a narrow discharge.

It would only apply to crops that were contaminated with PFAS when the owner had unknowingly obtained a contaminated fertilizer obtained from sewage sludge. The Department of Natural Resources in Wisconsin has already stated that it did not apply its cleaning policy in these circumstances.

What are PFAS?

PFAS, shorts for substances with pearls and polyfluoroalkil, are a family of more than 12,000 compounds, which are usually found in consumer products such as food packs, non-stick pans and raincoats, along with a special fire foam that can extinguish the most Hot flames.

Inappropriate chemicals appear in drinking water throughout the country. In 2022, the EPA launched health consultations, suggesting that almost no amount of several PFAS was safe for consumption.

DNR is currently monitoring PFAS pollution in more than 100 sites.

What are the requirements for cleaning the state?

State rules require consideration and restoration of the environment from countries that pollute the air, soil or water or detect past pollution of their property, even if they are not directly responsible.

DNR carries the countries responsible for PFAS contamination they have not caused, but also exercise discretion to force past sprayers to clean instead of current real estate owners. The law also, in certain circumstances, releases the neighbors of polluted properties from responsibility when the spill crosses their own lines.

The Authority of the Department comes from the Wisconsin Walks Act, adopted in 1978. The Wisconsin Supreme Court confirmed that the legislators intend to see the pollution that is being cleaned, regardless of who caused it. If you don’t, it is said that it is just like, if not more dangerous for human health than the initial spill.

The power of the Wisconsin Spill Act has been under control in recent years as the scale of PFAS cleaning costs appears.

What do the supporters of the Senate bill do not like this policy?

The Senate Bill of the last session would prevent the DNR from applying provisions of the Law on Spill, when the responsible party qualifies as an innocent landowner and allows the department to clean its property at the expense of the agency.

Wimberger said the measure would prevent the financial destruction of landowners seeking assistance from the PFAS pollution department or receiving clean water, without which their “application for grant is a self -installing statement that they have polluted property and are a radiator S “

The threat of performance against the owner of a contaminated property can make banks think twice for refinancing a loan or even demanding the borrower to pay off in full, he said. The occurrence of the implementation may increase the difficulty of selling a property.

In its most sneaky, the law can make property owners avoid testing pollutants, risking their health for fear of financial consequences.

Is this actually happening with landowners?

Wimberger has often represented innocent landowners as homeowners or farmers who have unconsciously had PFAS -containing entrances are spreading to their fields.

But last year, environmental defenders in the Midwest, who opposed the bill, examined each of the 130 PFAS cases that the department reported online.

The company has identified only seven cases applied to individuals and no one refers to farmers whose pollution originates from pfas fertilizer. Most interested enterprises such as chemical and energy companies, defense and rescue contractors.

What effects would a Republican proposal have?

Wimberger said the department promises to release farmers not to be sufficient, and throwing money on the problem is ineffective, unless lawmakers accept the fastening of application.

Although the GOP bill will have protected persons, exceptions to responsibility can also extend to enterprises such as private landfills or paper mills that distribute cellulose and industrial sludge on agricultural fields.

A list of more than 20 potential innocents, compiled by one of the co -authors of the bill, includes an electric broadcast company whose transformer broke out in 2019 and the city of La Cross, which the state is currently responsible for the pollution of its municipal airport. Supporters of the bill claim that property owners have no choice when firefighters sprayed the foam containing PFAS.

Lawyers from the Non -Party Legislative Board have told the lawmakers of PFAS manufacturers and the companies that test these chemicals will probably not qualify as innocent landowners.

However, the proposal would prevent DNR from applying laws of cleaning against PFAS -based samples taken from the company’s property unless the department cannot indicate that the pollution exceeds the government standard.

But Wisconsin lacks PFAS standards for groundwater and GOP bureaucratic obstacles, including a 30-month period for the rules to create rules, burdened their efforts to create them.

The second attempt of the state will expire in March.

Evers recently began new efforts to create PFAS groundwater rules and offered release from the usual detainees.

“Safe drinking water should not be a guerrilla problem and yet it was,” said a member of the Marinet Municipal Council and the Clean Water Defender Doug Lezinger, whose district is coping with PFAS pollution related to a firefighter training site owned of Johnson Controls International. “We have not been able to fully as a country to have environmental laws to protect us when it comes to PFAS.”

What does Eves say that he will include in his upcoming budget?

Evers’s proposal will transfer DNR money to test and eliminate PFAS in public drinking water systems, testing private well The whole country. Evers will also allocate $ 7 million to innocent land owners for testing and cleaning.

He continues to call for the release of the PFAS Trust Fund Money, the balance of which now amounts to $ 127.1 million, including unacceptable funds from the State Foam Cleaning Program.

“We cannot afford more years of inaction and obstacle,” Evers said in a statement. “I call on Republicans and Democrats to work together to make the best for our children and Wisconsin’s families by investing in critical efforts to improve water quality.”

But the potential spill law remains unknown until the governor’s budget has clarified the scope of responsibility for responsibility Ever hopes to create.

“I expect the governor for months to clarify his definition of an” innocent landowner “and he declined to respond to my requests,” Wimberger says in a statement.

The Evers’s employees said the governor remains against the restrictive body of the department and if the Republicans submit a proposal identical to the bill of the last session, he may veto it again.

Capture more news at Great Lakes now:

The survey shows Smartwatch’s wrists contains PFAS while EPA tracks nine versions of “Forever Chemicals”

Efforts to thwart the PFAS pollutants are moving down parallel tracks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox-acjhq0k

Recommended Image: A warning sign of PFAS risks at Starkweather Creek in Madison, Wisconsing, was published along the creek on July 20, 2021. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers now offers more funding to clean the toxic “forever chemicals”, known as PFAS. (Isaac Wasserman/WisConsin Watch)