State Senate Natural Resources Committee Gets PFAS Update

Wednesday, February 1st, 2023 -- 8:00 AM

(Raymond Neupert, WRN) State senators on the natural resources committee got a review of the state's response to PFAS contamination on Tuesday.

Members of the Wisconsin senate got more information about PFAS contamination at a hearing on Tuesday. UW Madison researcher Dr. Christy Remucal says most of Wisconsin's contamination still stems from one source. 

"Researchers have shown firefighting foam is one of the major sources of contamination and so my I think that's probably the most likely source in this region as well."

Dr. Remucal says there's a reason why cleanup of contamination remains difficult and expensive. "We have a lot of different water treatment methods; engineered water treatment methods, and none of our usual approaches work on these chemicals. There's not currently a good disruptive technology for PFAS."

Remucal says there's a worldwide effort to try and solve the issue. "The good news is that there is a ton of research going on, both in the US and across the world on trying to come up with a better way to destroy these chemicals. But we're not quite there yet."

Until there's a good solution, options will be expensive. Remucal says the most likely source of contamination in Wisconsin is firefighting foam.

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