The Town of Stella held their annual PFAS meeting to deliver important updates and answer resident questions. Community members heard from representatives from agencies such as the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency.
PFAS are man-made chemicals used for decades in numerous products, including non-stick cookware, that do not naturally degrade.
Among the updates, the DNR spoke on new grants to address the contamination.
Grants, Funding, and the efforts to test
The PFAS Community Grants Sampling Program was announced by the DNR the same day. It’s available for municipalities to apply for well testing, cover costs to design sampling programs, implement grant-funded sampling, and provide water for at least months for those with a water supply exceeding the health advisory levels.
“We're excited to have this," said Jim Ritchie, the Community Financial Assistance Bureau director with the Wisconsin DNR. "I think I hope that there's going to be a fair amount of interest around the state, from county health departments I think in particular will be a likely applicant, and we're just excited to have this first grant program up and running.”
The grant is open for municipalities to run their own sampling. Municipalities are defined as a city, village, town, county, Tribal governing bodies, utility district, lake protection district, sewerage district or technical college district and are all eligible to apply.
The grant is also open to private well testing, sampling drinking water wells at selected schools and child care facilities, wastewater and other materials at facilities like treatment plants.
The PFAS Well Compensation Program is in the works to provide money for needed well replacements. Similar to the AARPA Grant Program, this grant will have no income cap. Meaning all residents are welcome to apply.
“That was a major issue last year because a lot of people, you know, made were above that 100,000, so they didn't even qualify. At least now they'll qualify based on income, which is a good thing," said Stella Town Chair Casey Crump.
The program will include four levels of income-based cost sharing.
The updates also included the slow progress of the EPA’s Stella superfund site assessment, a NIH funded study, private sampling efforts, well replacements, and biosolid land applications.
Residents came to also get their questions answered. On notecards that were collected over the course of the meeting, Crump went through each. People asked questions about Snowden Lake, the cooperation from Ahlstrom and Wausau Paper. The companies held responsible for PFAS contamination.
Many residents had similar questions relating to remediation, available grants and resources, and available testing.
Resident Beverly Kuczmarski was grateful to hear the work being done.
"They had a lot of new information from the last time that they had," said Kuczmarski. "A lot more things are available, and my water personally was quite low, but it was more than the amount that that was acceptable for drinking water, so it gives you more opportunities to get different things for that."
Remediating PFAS has been a costly process for homeowners, cities and townships across Wisconsin, and especially the Northwoods. Both in dollars and peace of mind for many.
"I think people got to realize how important it is to for everybody." said Kuczmarski.
With the election for multiple offices approaching on November 3rd, PFAS remains one of the largest issues residents are looking towards leaders to help resolve.
Casey Crump said right now it's vital that everyone understands the scope of PFAS Contamination.
"Being an environmental health person for 30 plus years, there's a reality check that sometimes has to happen as to what how far we go with things, but there's also a reality check that needs to be done for how far we don't go," said Crump. "PFAS is one of those things that you know for a long time people were aware of it, but it never it never got into the government system."
The new PFAS grant program was created with funding passed by the Governor and State Legislature and more funding will likely be needed to address contamination throughout the state. The governor, all assembly seats, and half of the senate seats are up for election on November 3rd.
Crump says that no matter the candidate, it's important the issue continues to be pushed with high priority.
"It's not just here. It's the other townships as well, because again, there are houses and homes in those other other townships that have PFAS problems, and there may be a hidden issue out there as well," said Crump. "So just being aware of that and promoting that through the state or through federal."
According to the DNR update, 286 wells have been tested in and around Stella, with 96 wells testing above drinking water health advisory levels.
Maria Peralta-Arellano is a Report for America corps member, covering water quality and the environment for WXPR in northern Wisconsin and the U.P. Report for America places talented journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and regions.
