Both Support and Opposition to State Lawmakers Bills Regarding PFAS

Wednesday, June 7th, 2023 -- 10:00 AM

(By Hope Kirwan, Wisconsin Public Radio) Environmental, utility and industry groups showed both support and criticism for legislation addressing PFAS during a public hearing Monday.

According to Hope Kirwan with Wisconsin Public Radio, the Republican-authored Senate Bill 312 would provide a variety of grants to help municipalities test for PFAS and pay for related infrastructure upgrades.

But the bill would also limit the authority of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to test for PFAS and require remediation. Funding for the new grants would likely come from the $125 million approved by the Legislature's budget committee last month.

Most of the speakers at the public hearing were supportive of legislative action to address PFAS contamination, which has been found in a growing number of communities statewide. PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, can be found in cookware, food wrappers and firefighting foam and don’t easily break down in the environment.

Research shows high exposure to PFAS has been linked to kidney and testicular cancers, fertility issues, thyroid disease and reduced response to vaccines over time. But each person who testified raised different issues with the way the bill was written.

Sara Walling, water and agriculture program director for environmental advocacy group Clean Wisconsin, expressed concern that the new restrictions would weaken strong environmental protections under the state's Hazardous Substance Spill Law.

"We won't make progress on this issue if for every step forward in the use of these proposed new grants, communities will move two steps back in adequately identifying contaminated properties, remediating those properties and if necessary, holding polluters accountable," she said.

Rob Lee, staff attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, also cautioned lawmakers that the limitations could have unintended consequences in weakening the DNR's existing authority to address contamination. He said it's an important consideration, especially as the agency faces an increasing number of legal challenges.

"I think we're at a time where we need greater clarity, however limited or broad that may be, and I do think that this first draft (of the bill) has the potential to make their authority less clear in certain instances," Lee said. "What I'm really concerned about is how that lack of clarity might be leveraged to stretch the meaning of those limitations in the scope of them far beyond perhaps what you had in mind when drafting the bill."

But Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce testified in favor of many of the restrictions and called for further limiting the DNR's authority in some cases. The business advocacy group called for cutting the six PFAS chemicals identified in the bill down to the two with federal standards, excluding any chemicals that have public health advisories or proposed standards that haven't gone through a full state or federal rulemaking process.

WMC supported the bill's requirement for the DNR to get written permission from a landowner before doing water testing and called for expanding that requirement to whether the agency can publicly share the results of any tests.

Scott Manley, executive vice president of government relations for WMC, said he thinks lawmakers should be "very careful" about what authority the DNR has to require testing. He said the agency has not clearly defined their standards for PFAS remediation.

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