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Rhinelander Goes To Bimonthly PFAS Testing

Ben Meyer-WXPR

Since the discovery that the chemical contaminants known as PFAS was found in Rhinelander's water, the city has been testing for the chemicals on a monthly basis.

Action by the common council this week changed the costly tests to bimonthly.

At  the  meeting, Mayor Chris Frederickson said after shutting down two wells on the city's west side after levels topped federal standards, they've been testing the remaining wells monthly...

"The problem the city had was terminated when it shut down the wells. That being the case, to continually test to make sure other wells weren't an issue was legitimate and it's not hitting our distribution places at times is legitimate. But at this point, testing further, especially monthly, seems a bit excessive..."

Wastewater Foreman Jim Gossage said they saw the numbers change as wells 7 & 8 went offline..

"Once we took wells 7 & 8 offline, I think we tested in the distribution system probably two months following, we were coming up with very low numbers in the distribution system. So knowing we were no longer contributing, we stopped the monthly distribution but continued monthly well sampling at that point..."

The council approved going to a bimonthly testing schedule for the current water distribution with a provision that if the numbers go up again, the city would go to a monthly test.

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