Frederica Freyberg:

In other news, a Wisconsin environmental group is sounding the alarm over contamination of drinking water in the southeastern part of the state due to a residue from coal-fired power plants. Clean Wisconsin reports that coal ash used as fill in construction projects has polluted wells with a metal called molybdenum that at high levels can cause serious health problems. The group is calling for stricter regulation of the so-called beneficial use of coal ash. For its part, the Department of Natural Resources rejects the findings, saying, in part, The department does not concur that there is a clear correlation between the elevated molybdenum in groundwater in southeast Wisconsin and the beneficial use of ash from coal-fired power plants. Tyson Cook is director of science and research at Clean Wisconsin, which released the study this week, titled “Don’t Drink the Water.” Thanks very much for being here.

Tyson Cook:

Thanks for having me on.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you’re literally just off the plane back from Washington where you met with Senator Baldwin and the Office of Management and Budget on your findings. What did you tell them?

Tyson Cook:

Yeah, that’s exactly right. The EPA right now is working on draft rules to regulate the coal ash reuse and disposal and those sort of things, and so those draft rules are at the Office of Management and Budget right now. They’re due to come out January 19– Or December 19, sorry. We went there to kind of talk about the story in Wisconsin, what we see happening here, you know. Wisconsin has been looked to as the gold standard of these kind of practices, and the research that we did and what we found indicates that that may not be true. You know, we might not actually be protecting the groundwater as well as we need to.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, does your study show that the contamination is more widespread than already acknowledged in Wisconsin? Because, for example, you reported and we know that Yorkville Elementary School has already been drinking bottled water for two years because of elevated levels of this metal. So is it more widespread according to your study? And how widespread?

Tyson Cook:

Yeah, it’s quite widespread in the region. You know, what we did is we got all the publically available information from the DNR and DHS and we kind of mapped out everywhere where there’s elevated molybdenum levels. We found that it is really widespread in a four county region down there. We looked at Kenosha, Waukesha, Racine and Milwaukee counties and found that there is a lot of molybdenum contamination happening. In fact, in more than one in five wells that were tested the levels of molybdenum were above the health advisory limits set by the DHS.

Frederica Freyberg:

This is a result of using this coal ash in various different ways, basically dumping it?

Tyson Cook:

There’s a lot of different ways that coal ash can be beneficially reused. You know, some of those are more protective of the environment than others. So, for example, using it as something like concrete or to make wallboard. Those are what we call encapsulated uses, and those are really protected and those are really good things. What we are looking at is these kind of structural fill uses where they just basically put the coal ash underneath buildings and roadways and those kind of things.

Frederica Freyberg:

And that is in widespread use, this so-called beneficial use of this coal ash.

Tyson Cook:

Yeah, we were able to find over one million tons that we were able to map in that southeast Wisconsin region. And to your earlier question, what we found when we mapped those next to the well contamination in the region was that there was a significant correlation, where the closer wells were to those beneficial use sites, the higher of levels of contamination were on average.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile though, the DNR is saying that they believe there is no clear correlation. And they also suggest that your study did not, legitimately explore the potential for the natural occurrence of this metal. How do you respond to that?

Tyson Cook:

Well, we did look at natural-occurring molybdenum levels, both, you know, nationally and in Wisconsin. We looked at the data that we did have in that region. And you know, naturally-occurring molybdenum is really rare. It occurs in very low levels. The DHS did a study in northern and central Wisconsin and they looked at thousands of different wells. They found that 98% of them had levels below 20 parts per billion. And we’re talking about levels of 50, 90, even over 100 parts per billion here.

Frederica Freyberg:

You looked at southeast Wisconsin. Is there this so-called beneficial use of coal ash throughout the state?

Tyson Cook:

That’s a really good question. You know, we think that there probably is. There’s no reason to think that there’s not. We focused on southeast Wisconsin because of the unique history there and so that’s where we kind of dove in and we gathered those records.

Frederica Freyberg:

How does Wisconsin compare to other states across the country?

Tyson Cook:

That’s another really good question. You know, we’ve been looked to as kind of the gold standard of this kind of beneficial reuse because we have these regulations. But as it turns out, there’s other states that are now doing things that are more protective of groundwater than Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, you are also asking the DNR to get onboard and do what, better monitoring, better accounting of where this coal ash is used?

Tyson Cook:

Yeah, that’s exactly right. So whether or not the coal ash is the only cause down there– You know, the DNR like you said has pointed to naturally-occurring levels that might be elevated there. The fact remains that wells in that area are contaminated. There’s really high levels of this toxic metal in people’s drinking water. We shouldn’t be doing anything that increases that toxicity, that increases the amount of contamination.

Frederica Freyberg:

But meanwhile just last year I understand, according to your report, the health advisory level for this metal was raised to more than twice the previous level. What is Clean Wisconsin’s position on that?

Tyson Cook:

We don’t think there was any good reason to raise that level. You know, the EPA sets a health advisory level at the federal level at 40 parts per billion, which is what the enforcement standard is in Wisconsin and what our health advisory was previously. More recently it was raised up to 90 parts per billion, which as it turns out is actually higher than what the EPA recommends children be exposed to for even a single day.

Frederica Freyberg:

Certainly more work to come on this. Thanks very much.

Tyson Cook:

Thanks for having me.