Frederica Freyberg:
Tyco Fire Products reached a settlement this month with the state of Wisconsin to clean up PFAS contamination in Marinette County. Tyco manufactured firefighting foam that spread the forever chemicals in soil and water. The settlement requires Tyco to put $10 million into Wisconsin's PFAS Trust Fund for future cleanup, provide clean water in the Marinette area, including deep drinking water wells in a prescribed area for 20 years, monitor and report water quality within the 35 square miles that includes parts of the city of Marinette and the town of Peshtigo, and requires Tyco to remediate and restore the environment in soil, groundwater and surface water. Another lawsuit against the company and others is ongoing. For reaction to the PFAS settlement, we turn to Jeff Lamont, a resident in Marinette and a retired hydrologist. And Jeff, thanks very much for being here.

Jeff Lamont:
You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So how long in coming was this settlement?

Jeff Lamont:
AG Kaul was up in Marinette for a DNR listening session, you know, which they were doing about every six months at the time to update the public on what was happening and what Tyco was doing. And in 2019 — December — we were able to beg some time from him, and pleaded our case to file this suit against them for essentially, at the time, not reporting this. They found PFAS on their fire training facility three-and-a-half to four years before they reported it to DNR, which violated the Spills Law, and they let the community drink this contaminated water for four years before reporting it. So yeah, we're seven years, and we were first informed of the contamination in November of 2017. So it's almost been 10 years.

Frederica Freyberg:
But in your mind, this settlement barely touches the problem.

Jeff Lamont:
Yes, well, so the settlements we're not happy at all about because what it did essentially, it said there was the initial investigation area and then there was an expanded investigation area. For 10 years, the DNR had fought with Tyco about the responsibility beyond this essential first area that was investigated. The contamination was the same. I mean, and we're talking in places where it's neighbors right across the street — well, we're going to take care of you on this side of the street, but the other side of the street, that's not our contamination. And this lawsuit limited their liability to just the initial investigation area, not the expanded investigation area or the 3,000 acres of contaminated biosolids that was spread in Marinette County.

Frederica Freyberg:
But isn't the settlement and the $125 million in state funding and potential of an ongoing lawsuit a starting point better than nothing?

Jeff Lamont:
It is better than nothing. But if you want to put that into perspective, Tyco has set aside $180 million just for this site. So, I mean, we're just one of many, you know, dozens, if not hundreds, in the state that are impacted. So it really does not go very far. And the deep wells Tyco has been putting in: Approximately $100,000 a piece, so if you look at another $10 million, that might address another 100 wells in the community beyond the initial investigation area that are still contaminated with their PFAS.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you have experience in large-scale cleanups with the EPA. What, in your experience, should be happening?

Jeff Lamont:
Well, you know, I try to let the citizens in our community know that these are very, very long drawn out processes. I mean, a lot of the Superfund sites that I worked on had been in the gears for 10, 15, 20, sometimes 30 years before the remediation actually went into place or started. And often these remedial efforts can take multiple years. The Waukegan Harbor cleanup I did, we were there for seven or eight years from once we started project.

Frederica Freyberg:
Can PFAS — these forever chemicals — can they be removed, remediated, make people safe?

Jeff Lamont:
They can be. There's a number of technologies. And PFAS become such a huge problem countrywide, a lot of companies have started to invest a lot of money in different techniques to clean up. You know, Tyco chose, in my opinion, a very ineffective solution. They did a pump and treat system to remove shallow groundwater, and treat it with granular activated carbon and resins. It can remove that, but there are more practical ways. They're more expensive. The reactive barrier walls are one that is being used a lot these days, on Air Force bases and in different communities across the country. But Tyco chose, in my opinion, a very ineffective method to address this.

Frederica Freyberg:
How can the sources of contamination be held accountable in your experience?

Jeff Lamont:
Well, in this particular case, this fire training center — I mean, they were testing for 60 years these AFFF foams by igniting accelerants, and then having different groups that were being trained, whether it was Department of Defense or whether it was different fire departments from different communities, airports. They would spray this foam directly on open ground to put these accelerants out, the trainers. And then once they were done, they would just hose it down into the original ditches. So I would've liked seen them do a reactive barrier on their site. This groundwater treatment system is approximately a half mile down gradient for their site. So typically a big source like this, you want to do source control, you want to control the contamination where it happened instead of a half mile or a quarter mile down the road from where it happened. The high school — Marinette High School — is between the fire training center and where the groundwater extraction system is going. So all the water underneath the high school is contaminated. And, of course, we're learning now that air deposition and deposition through rainwater is a significant contributor to this. And so, you know, when they would burn, this soot would go right over the high school. I remember talking to one of the teachers there that retired there saying, "Every day I would walk out after they'd burn, I'd have to wipe my car down because there would be this dust from the fires on my vehicles."

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you hold out hope that this will be adequately remediated in Wisconsin?

Jeff Lamont:
Not a lot. Without significant, you know, outpour and outcry from the public, it's such a costly endeavor that unless there's a responsible party like we have — Tyco, Johnson Controls — this is going to fall on the taxpayer. And, you know, there's only so much resources in the state budgets for this kind of thing. Like we talked about earlier, $135 million is kind of a drop in the bucket really, but it is a starting point. So I should be more optimistic, I guess, for that.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Well, we will leave it on that note. Jeff Lamont, thanks so much.

Jeff Lamont:
Thank you so much.