Here & Now

William Casey Crump on State Funds to Address PFAS Pollution

Frederica Freyberg:
Now that 125 million state dollars are coming to the rescue for communities across Wisconsin poisoned by the forever chemicals PFAS, the question is when will the money come and how much will go where? Those questions are front of mind in the town of Stella, population about 650, with some of the highest concentrations of PFAS in the country. Town Chair William Casey Crump is here, and thanks very much for being here.

William Casey Crump:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what was your reaction when you learned the funds would finally be released?

William Casey Crump:
It was — it was a relief, to be honest. It’s been, you know, two years or three years roughly, I think, since those funds were originally talked about. And to have the Senate and the governor finally come to an agreement and get that stuff signed off on and get it out is, is the first of many steps yet to come, I think.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yeah. Because what do you know about how much Stella will receive?

William Casey Crump:
That’s the great unknown. I talked to DNR yesterday as a matter of fact and we’re going to — they’re still trying to figure out exactly who’s going to control the money, how it’s going to be distributed. They’re not even sure themselves exactly, you know, whether it’s going to be municipalities like Stella that end up getting some of the money or, or our residents, I should say, not necessarily municipality or it’s going to be public water works that get the money. You know, we’ve got Wausau, we’ve got Tomahawk and some in Rhinelander even that have well issues for their township, for their towns. Whereas out here in Starks, we’re individual wells. And so each homeowner is responsible for that. And so it’s very important, hopefully, that there will be some of that money that will go directly to those residents.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because would that be priority one for the funds in Stella – private wells?

William Casey Crump:
I would love to see it become priority one. Either that or treatment systems. The way it is right now is the DNR did have some funds that they made available for people to have their wells redrilled. The problem is when those redrills were done, they still had PFAS in their water, which made their water undrinkable. Some of them came up, still had PFAS, but it was below the level. So the second area — secondary treatment on that is to put in a water treatment system in your home. It’s, it’s — we don’t want or I, I, I feel like we don’t want a kitchen faucet treatment. We want a whole house treatment system because if you’re only getting your drinking water from your kitchen sink, it’s very hard to brush teeth. It’s very hard to, you know, take showers. It’s — it makes it much more difficult. So that’s why a whole house system would be important. And those are expensive. So again, money for that would be a blessing.

Frederica Freyberg:
Why not jump right to the whole house system instead of going through drilling new wells or deeper wells?

William Casey Crump:
Well, I think that if they can get clean water and they can get a, a well that works, that’s a much longer-term solution. And also it’s, it’s not it’s not going to be any more of a great cost on the residents. The whole home treatments require filters. Those filters run $300 to $500. They recommend you change those quarterly. There’s two filters. So that’s $1,000 each time they have to change the filter. So that’s roughly $4000 a year. That’s very, very rough on our, on our families out here. We’re not a rich community. We’re not vacation homes. We’re farmers. We’re ranchers. We’re small. You know, we’re, we’re blue-collar people.

Frederica Freyberg:
So we’ve reported on this, but what is the known source of the PFAS in your community?

William Casey Crump:
Well, it’s definitely there is a lot of information that points to the paper mills, the sludge from the paper mills. And I’m not sure if you know how that works. And I won’t go into great detail on that. But when they wash the paper, all of that water gets collected. All the stuff that comes off the paper gets collected. And it was looked at back in the ’60s and ’70s as a very, very high nutrient rich fertilizer. So they spread it on the fields out here for years and years and years. The property that I own, they spread it clear back into mid ’70s, I think, up until probably the time we bought the land. And so paper mill has been a big part of that. And the paper mill here made microwave popcorn bags. Those bags are lined, were lined with PFAS to keep them from leaking, to keep the butter and the oil inside it from leaking out. And that’s where the majority of the PFAS came from when they were treating those microwave popcorn bags. That’s what we’ve been told. That’s what the history shows. And that, of course, is what the DNR pointed to in their announcement of a linked source. But the paper mill Ahlstrom, who is like the third owner, I think since I’ve lived here in the last 20 years, they have stepped forward and they are providing some drinking water to families that have concerns. The problem with that is it’s not a solution.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, we will keep watching the situation there and we appreciate your time.

William Casey Crump:
You betcha. Thank you.