Senator Tammy Baldwin's office issued the following:
10.7.19
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources’ announcement today that high
concentrations of chemicals containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS) were detected in surface waters in Dane and Monroe
Counties, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin released the following statement:
“The dangerous levels of PFAS recently
detected in Wisconsin surface waters are alarming and warrant serious
action. PFAS chemicals pose a dangerous risk to public health and our
environment, especially near Starkweather Creek in Madison and Silver
Creek in Monroe County where the highest PFAS concentration levels were
found.
“I met with residents and stakeholders
affected by PFAS water contamination in Marinette earlier this month who
are advocating for public and private action to address the dangerous
contamination of their soil and water. Staff from both CDC and EPA were
invited to my meeting in Marinette, but both agencies declined to
attend. Now more than ever, they need to step up and invest in research
on how PFAS chemicals harm human health and establish meaningful
standards to help protect Wisconsinites from PFAS exposure. We must
address this public health crisis now.
“I’ve been working at the federal level to
provide resources for environmental testing for PFAS at sites with
contamination challenges like Truax Field in Madison and others,
establish enforceable standards for PFAS chemicals in drinking water
across the nation and hold federal agencies accountable when they are
the cause of groundwater contamination. I’m going to continue my work to
protect public health and ensure Wisconsin has clean drinking water.”
The Wisconsin DNR today announced the first
round of surface water sampling results collected through the agency’s
Water Quality Program. Results show elevated levels of PFOS - one of the
most widely used and studied PFAS chemicals - in Starkweather Creek in
Madison and Silver Creek in Monroe County.
Senator Baldwin has been working to ensure
Wisconsin has clean drinking water. She successfully secured provisions
from her bipartisan PFAS Accountability Act in the bipartisan 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to
hold federal agencies accountable for addressing PFAS contamination at
military bases across the country when they caused the contamination.
Baldwin’s bipartisan PFAS Detection Act
was also included in NDAA to authorize funding for the U.S. Geological
Survey to develop new advanced technologies to detect PFAS and then to
conduct nationwide sampling for PFAS in the environment.
Senator Baldwin also worked to ensure that NDAA
requires the Department of Defense to phase out the use of firefighting
foam that contain PFAS chemicals by mid-2022. The use of PFAS in
firefighting foam is believed to have contributed to PFAS water
contamination at Truax Field.
In addition, Baldwin’s reforms in NDAA require
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish an enforceable
drinking water standard for PFOA and PFOS in public water systems within
two years and require that companies publicly disclose any releases of
PFOA or PFOS through the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory.
