When Jeff Lamont attended high school in Marinette, Wisconsin 60 years ago, a local company that produced military-grade firefighting foam would invite science classes to practice extinguishing fires, including his.
The company would set off accelerants, Lamont and his classmates would extinguish the fires with the foam, and fire hoses would wash away the residue. But it wasn’t just science classes that were practicing these techniques. Companies would test their foam on open ground without containment, leaving leftover foam to seep into the ground, flooding nearby rivers and streams with contaminants. This process continued for decades.
The main contaminants in this foam were per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs), which have been detected in wells all over the state. Known as “forever chemicals,” PFAs are manufactured chemicals that break down very slowly over extended periods of time, commonly found in firefighting foam, other chemical manufacturing and even household items such as nonstick cookware or shampoo, according to the EPA.
In 2017, Tyco, which has since been bought by Johnson Controls, first reported to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that they had found PFAs in their private wells. Lamont told The Daily Cardinal the company asked to test him and his neighbors wells in Peshtigo and found unsafe levels of PFAs.
The findings led Lamont and a few other community members to form S.O.H2O or Save Our Water, an organization that worked to inform the public about the toxicity of PFAs and pressure the state for groundwater, drinking water and surface water standards.
Lamont, who is a retired hydrologist and has investigated water systems throughout his career, dug deeper. While looking at the Tyco reports and DNR investigations, most of which centered around the safety of the accelerants used to start fires, he discovered that Tyco first found PFAs in their wells in 2014 but didn’t alert the DNR for another three years.
“They allowed the citizens in this community to drink that contaminated water for three years before they notified the DNR of it,” Lamont said.
Save Our Water took the fight to the Wisconsin Capitol, where there are signs of slow progress, Peter Burress, the government affairs manager for Wisconsin Conservation Voters, told the Cardinal. He and his organization have worked closely with Lamont and Save Our Water.
After Marinette found PFAs in their wells, more voluntary testing and community pressure led to cases of PFAs springing up all over the state.
In August 2022, the DNR proposed new PFAs standards for drinking water, groundwater and surface water, including a 20 parts per trillion restriction on drinking water and groundwater as well as an eight parts per trillion cap on surface water. Only the latter passed with some restrictions, and the voting Natural Resources Board, primarily appointed by former Gov. Scott Walker, agreed on a 70 parts per trillion cap on drinking water.
The Board shot down a groundwater restriction entirely. The state has never had standards on PFAs in groundwater, the source of drinking water for two-thirds of Wisconsin residents, according to Burress.
“Many of those communities who are first impacted and have been dealing with this issue the longest are still fighting for a groundwater standard,” Burress told the Cardinal.
A second attempt to pass groundwater standards late last year was halted by the REINS Act, a piece of Walker-era legislation that requires state legislative authorization of administrative rules that carry compliance and implementation costs of $10 million or more over a two-year period.
In May 2023, GOP lawmakers in the Legislature’s budget-writing committee set aside $125 million for a fund to sponsor the removal of PFAs. But the money has sat in the fund as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have been unable to agree on the proper way to release the funds to the DNR.
With the funding frozen, citizens continue to suffer. From Burress’s perspective, previously gerrymandered districts that have since been revised by Gov. Tony Evers will be the key to progress. Citizens will be more responsive to their legislators with fairer districts, he said.
“We know that safe drinking water is popular. If you talk to any legislator, they'll say, ‘I support a clean environment,’” Burress said. “A near supermajority in this Legislature has been able to completely ignore what folks across the state from both sides of the aisle are demanding.”
The federal government is unable to assist with any of the groundwater standards that many organizations hope will be passed, but Burress said the Biden-Harris administration has also been instrumental in the effort.
In April, the EPA announced the first-ever national drinking water standard for six types of PFAs, capping the two most common, PFOA and PFOS, at four parts per trillion .
The standard will give communities three years to test their water and inform the public, with systems needing to implement solutions to decrease PFAs in their drinking water in the next five years — a “huge step,” Burress said.
“These are the first new drinking water standards established by the EPA in 27 years, which is wild, and they got it done,” he said.
But back in small communities like Marinette, the wait for funding has dragged on for so long, residents are simply tired of fighting, according to Lamont.
“[Residents] just want it to be over,” Lamont said. ”It's unfortunate, but that's kind of the blue collar mentality we have in this community. [We]'ve been fighting for six or seven years and look, it's gotten us nothing.”
Still, Lamont, Buress and other advocates persist, hopeful to bring change with the upcoming November elections. Groundwater standards and a counter to the REINS Act to release funding will be on the agenda.
