After over two years of bipartisan negotiations, the Wisconsin State Legislature this week approved a package of bills to invest over $125M to fight PFAS contamination. The compromise bills fund several new grant programs, provide additional staffing resources to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and protect innocent landowners from liability.
The largest new grant program will provide $80M to local governments to combat and remediate PFAS contamination in their communities. Eligible activities include sampling for PFAS in wells, groundwater, biosolids, and drinking water; installing PFAS treatment at public water systems; connecting private well owners to public water systems in areas with PFAS contamination; and conducting actions to mitigate, treat, or dispose of PFAS contamination in air, land, waters, or other natural resources. Additional funding provisions will allow private well owners to replace, reconstruct, or treat wells; assist public airports and certain businesses with tackling PFAS contamination; provide emergency bottled water when PFAS contamination in drinking water is discovered; and support the State Lab of Hygiene and other labs in evaluating samples for PFAS.
The bills create 10 new full-time positions to allow DNR to administer the new grant programs, and appropriate an additional $1.3M from the general fund to DNR for general program operations, fishery and water resources management, and communications and customer services.
An additional measure establishes a list of entities that would be exempt from liability for contamination, including people who spread PFAS while in compliance with permits that did not address PFAS, landowners whose property was contaminated pursuant to a permit, owners of contaminated industrial property who did not cause the pollution, and fire departments that used PFAS in their foam.
For more information, see Governor Tony Evers’ press release.
