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Wausau mayor updates efforts to address PFAs in drinking water

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Wausau residents can expect some movement on the PFAS front in the next two weeks.

Mayor Katie Rosenberg says they're researching which removal methods work best for their water's chemistry, and how to best finance those methods within the new drinking water treatment plant.

“We want to make sure we are procuring things correctly so we can get reimbursed”, said Rosenberg.

Bipartisan infrastructure dollars are one potential source of funding.

Rosenberg says they are also keeping an eye on how those upgrades could impact water bills.

“I want to say the most expensive version will increase the bill between $3 and $10 a quarter. I’m not quite sure where that landed. That’s what we need to parse through with our financial advisor… make sure that we’re looking at things correctly, make sure that the public has that information.”

Rosenberg says they are aiming to get the contaminates down as low as possible, because it remains to be seen where the Environmental Protection Agency's standards for PFAS will land.

“If we go lower than 20 parts per trillion, which we might be regulated to… we don’t have the EPA regulatory standard yet. So it could be that we have to go lower than that, I’m not sure, so we want to make sure we have all our information in front of us.”

The city's finance committees and council will meet this week to discuss providing additional filters from ZeroWater for the pitchers that were distributed to residents this spring to remove the so-called forever chemicals from the city's drinking water.

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