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Time is running short for a pair of bills meant to clean up pollution from hazardous “forever chemicals” known to be present at sites in the Milwaukee area and at more than 30 other locations throughout Wisconsin. With the Assembly likely to wrap up its business for the current legislative session this month, lawmakers have only a few weeks left to pass legislation proponents hope will set statewide standards for concentrations of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).
These chemicals, often used in firefighting foam, have been linked to cancer and other diseases. The “forever chemicals” name comes from their resistance to breaking down in nature. The two pieces of PFAS-related legislation—Wisconsin Senate bills 772 and 773—received favorable votes from the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy on Tuesday, Feb. 11. If passed into law, they would put in place an “emergency rule” setting the upward limit of acceptable groundwater concentration at 20 parts per trillion for two types of PFAS: perfluorooctanoic acid (also known as C8) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. That would be in line with recommendations put forward by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and similar to limits set in our neighboring states of Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan.
The legislation would also provide $5 million worth of grants to help local governments clean up known sites of PFAS pollution and $1 million to test local water supplies. Still more money would be spent on hiring state personnel, on blood testing for people living in affected areas and on research to learn how much PFAS contamination can be linked to individual industrial operations and other single “point sources” of pollution. In the Milwaukee area, PFAS has been found in high concentrations at Mitchell International Airport, the Biogenesis Enterprises site in Oak Creek and the former Air Reserve Station at 300 E. College Ave., among other places.
Push Back From Republican Anti-environmentalists
If the cleanup bills make it all the way to Gov. Tony Evers, they will almost certainly be signed into law. First, though, they must go through the state’s Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate, where they’ll encounter opposition of the sorts that’s common for environmental legislation. Already, business-aligned groups like Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Paper Council have advanced strenuous arguments that more research needs to be done to make sure the proposed restrictions don’t overreach.
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There is an interesting and unusual twist on this piece of legislation. The Assembly sponsor of Senate bills 772 and 773 is state Rep. John Nygren, a Republican from Marinette, whose position as co-chairman of the state’s Joint Finance Committee makes him one of the most powerful politicians in the Capitol. Nygren’s hometown and district in northwestern Wisconsin put him right in the middle of the PFAS controversy. Much of the contamination has been traced back to fire-fighting products that Tyco, Inc. (which was bought by Johnson Controls International in 2016) started making in Marinette in the 1960s. At a public hearing on the two bills, Nygren said: “For me and several others in the room today, this issue hits close to home, literally and figuratively.”
A spokesman for the other chief sponsor of the legislation, state Sen. Dave Hansen, a Democrat from Green Bay, says Nygren’s support does, indeed, improve the bills’ chances of adoption. Even if Rep. Nygren could get the bills passed in the Assembly, which would be no easy task since many of the other 62 Republicans in the Assembly have close ties to businesses and related interests who oppose any legislation of this kind, they would have literally no chance to pass in the Senate. The Senate has scheduled very few session days this year because the majority leader is running for Congress and doesn’t want to offend any of his check-writing supporters and second the author of the Senate bills author is a Democrat and with the current state of hyper-partisanship they will not even get a hearing.
During the deliberations, Wadd explains, he saw little sign that the manufacturing lobby was willing to even try to reach a compromise. “I don’t think this is an issue where you can thread the needle between what the powerful corporate interests want and what needs to be done to truly protect people in our environment,” Wadd says. “And so it’s going to be interesting to see whether Rep. Nygren’s Republican colleagues understand what he’s trying to do and support him in these efforts.”
‘We Needed This Yesterday’
Wadd says there’s little doubt more legislation is needed. So far, the only major bill state lawmakers have passed to deal with PFAS—signed by the governor on Wednesday, Feb. 5—merely prevents further pollution by limiting the use of PFAS to emergency situations or testing at specially designated sites. In other words, it does practically nothing to clean up existing contamination.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is also conducting a series of public hearings around the state to gather as much information as possible about exposure to PFAS and resulting ailments. Whatever is learned will no doubt be useful to some extent on its own, according to Wadd, but to really make a difference, the DNR and other state agencies will need additional money of the sort that would be provided by bills 772 and 773.
Laura Olah—executive director of the Merrimac-based nonprofit group Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger (CSWAB)—said yet another crying need is for research into the extent of PFAS contamination. So far, the forever chemicals have been found mostly at sites where they could be expected: military bases and industrial sites. Further testing could reveal the pollution is much more widespread than anyone currently suspects. Most importantly, Olah adds, Wisconsin needs to be taking action to combat what has been a long-recognized threat to public health.
“It’s primarily resources,” she says. “Because you can have the all the regulations in the world, but you have nothing if you haven’t got the resources to implement those plans. And the second thing is the timeline. We needed this yesterday.”
The PFAS legislation was passed by the state Assembly on Tuesday, Feb. 18, and now goes to the state Senate, where its chances of adoption are slim.
