Tag Archives: pollution

No Nukes ~ Back from the Brink ~ Take Action Madison Wisconsin

The Madison Back from the Brink Resolution (Resolution #79719) will be voted on by the  Madison City Council on Tuesday night, 10/3/23 at 6:30 pm

Back from Brink Resolutions call on our federal government to:

• Actively pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their
nuclear arsenals. (Download more information)

• Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first. (Download more information)

• End the president’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack. (Download more information)

• Take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger (launch ready) alert. (Download more information)

• Cancel the plan to replace the entire U.S. arsenal with enhanced weapons. (Download more information)

Contact Alders by 10/3/2023 

• Email or call your Common Council member. Ask them to vote in support of Resolution #79719

If you are not sure who your alderperson is, you can do one of the following:
o Find Alder by Address
o Find Alder by Map

• Email the entire Common Council using the online contact form.

• Call the Common Council Office at (608) 266-4071 to leave a message for the entire
Common Council.

Letter template for Alder contact 

Background

Register Your Support on 10/2/23-10/3/23
1. Go to www.cityofmadison.com/MeetingRegistration.
2. Select under Meeting: City Council 10/3/23 6:30 pm. Agenda Item is Resolution
#79719.
3. Register your support. You do not need to speak. List your contact info and register.

Read the Mayor of Madison’s recent post about
divesting from nuclear weapons.

This information from Physicians for Social Responsibility

source document 2023-9-27 Action alert 3b____ (1)

Hot Potato: PFAS Forever Chemicals in Madison

Hot potato: PFAS contamination lingers at burn pits as city, county, National Guard contest responsibility

original article 

“More than four years after the state Department of Natural Resources warned of toxic “forever” chemicals at former firefighter training sites near the Madison airport, city, county and state officials have yet to begin cleanup amid disputes over who is responsible.

In June 2018, the DNR notified Dane County, the city of Madison and the Wisconsin Air National Guard they may be responsible for PFAS contamination at the sites, which were known as “burn pits” used for firefighter training between the 1950s and 1980s.

Tests of shallow groundwater at the sites found two PFAS compounds at levels thousands of times higher than state standards for drinking water or groundwater, and millions of times what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for drinking water.

The sites on Darwin Road and Pearson Street both drain into Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona, where health officials have warned anglers to limit consumption of fish because of the chemicals, which have been linked to illnesses including high blood pressure, low birth weight, developmental delays and most recently liver cancer.

The DNR has also ordered the city, county and National Guard to clean up PFAS from other parts of the airport, which is home to Truax Field.

 EPA: Almost no safe level of forever chemicals

For years, the city and county have deferred to the National Guard, which is investigating PFAS contamination under the federal Superfund law, a process that could take a decade for actual cleanup work to begin.

But when the National Guard Bureau submitted a final plan last spring, the burn pits were not included because the bureau said it was not solely responsible.

Now the DNR is again asking the city, county and Wisconsin National Guard to further investigate the site and determine what, if any, cleanup is required.

‘Hot potato’

The delays come as industry groups have challenged the DNR’s authority to require cleanup of PFAS. A Waukesha County judge ruled in April that the agency must first go through a 2½-year rulemaking process to list the chemicals as hazardous substances, though his order is on hold while under appeal.

Maria Powell, founder of the Madison Environmental Justice Organization, which helped bring the burn pit pollution to light, said city, county and military leaders have been playing “hot potato” with the burn pits since pollution was first documented in the 1980s.

Powell said it would be “almost comical” if not for the “complete disregard” for people — many of them low-income people of color — who live downstream and eat the contaminated fish.

“It’s not funny,” she said. “It’s criminal.”

Long practice

The Darwin Road site was used from 1953 until 1987 to train firefighters with the National Guard, city of Madison, and Dane County, as well as volunteer fire departments, according to a 1989 Corps of Engineers report.

Jet fuel, kerosene and other flammable liquids would be spilled on the ground, set on fire and then extinguished. The report documented an array of hazardous chemicals in the groundwater, though there were no tests for PFAS.

A former firefighter training area, known as a burn pit, on Pearson Street is one of two sites near the Dane County Regional Airport with high levels of PFAS. Both sites drain into Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona, where anglers have been warned to limit consumption of fish because of contamination.
JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

 

A second burn pit on Pearson Road was used by various fire departments starting in the late 1980s.

In 2018, the DNR notified the city, county and Guard that the sites were likely contaminated with PFAS and requested an investigation.

DNR spokesperson Sarah Hoye said the agency “didn’t have actual soil or groundwater data from the fire training areas demonstrating a release of a hazardous substance,” which it needs to require a cleanup.

In 2020, an environmental contractor found combined levels of two chemicals — PFOA and PFOS — at more than 68,000 parts per trillion in groundwater at the Darwin Road site and in excess of 20,000 ppt at the Pearson Street site. While Wisconsin does not regulate PFAS in groundwater, the standards for surface water is 8 ppt for PFOS and 95 ppt for PFOA.

City’s stance

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway told the DNR in 2019 that the city should not be responsible for the burn pits, but the DNR maintains that the city provided firefighting services for Truax Field and owned the Darwin Road site until 1974, when the federal government required the use of PFAS foams at military bases.

In March the City Council approved an agreement with the county and Guard to split the cost of a $30,000 investigation — not into the extent of PFAS contamination but “historical PFAS use” at the training areas.

According to the resolution, “a more complete understanding about the historical use of PFAS-containing firefighting materials at the Airport, including at and near the Burn Pits, will be helpful to the parties.”

Rhodes-Conway’s chief of staff, Mary Bottari, said the city is not contesting its responsibility for the site, though its share “has yet to be determined.”

“The city would still like to ultimately see a complete picture of the historical PFAS use at the airport, including at the two firefighting training areas, which a historical investigation could help develop,” Bottari said. “We do know, for example, that other local fire departments trained at the facilities. If we are able to identify those parties, they can help build a complete picture of historic use on the site.”

A former firefighter training area, known as a burn pit, on Darwin Road is one of two sites near the Dane County Regional Airport with high levels of PFAS. Both sites drain into Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona, where anglers have been warned to limit consumption of fish because of contamination.
CHRIS HUBBUCH, STATE JOURNAL

It’s not clear when that investigation began or how long it will take.

Bottari said it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for city staff to comment on cleanup plans because the land is owned by the county, which will play the “lead role.”

Update pending

County officials declined to be interviewed about the cleanup plan.

In a written statement, airport spokesperson Michael Riechers said the city, county and Guard are developing “a plan to further investigate the firefighting training areas that will incorporate several facets including investigative efforts already completed and the pilot projects currently underway at the airport.”

Riechers said the county intends to update the DNR next week.

The state Department of Natural Resources has asked the city of Madison, Dane County and the Wisconsin National Guard to clean up firefighter training areas on Pearson Street, above, and Darwin Road that are contaminated with toxic PFAS chemicals.
JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Maj. Leslie Westmont, a spokesperson for the Air National Guard, referred questions about the burn pits to the National Guard Bureau, the federal agency that excluded them from its cleanup plan for the rest of the base.

The National Guard Bureau did not respond to questions.

Federal process

The bureau is overseeing the base cleanup under the federal Superfund law, a process that could take up to a decade for actual cleanup to begin.

The military has spent about $2 million so far investigating the extent of PFAS contamination at the base and expects the next phase of the investigation will cost almost $2 million more.

Lance Green, co-chair of the Friends of Starkweather Creek and a member of the Sustainable Madison Committee, said he’s been frustrated for years by the lack of action.

“PFAS is fairly new, but everybody knows about sucking the water out of the ground and getting the PFAS out,” Green said. “We need stronger action now to start lowering the contamination. That’s simple.”

DNR spokesperson Sarah Hoye said there’s not enough data to determine if the pollutants have spread from the site, but environmental watchdogs say there’s no reason to believe the highly-mobile chemicals would stay put.

“It can only spread,” Green said. “That’s the thing it does: spread.”

Green said it will take years to reduce PFAS levels in the lakes and fish, but only if the city, county and Guard take immediate action to eliminate the source.

“It continues to move out and it continues to get fish full of PFAS,” he said.

The city council has approved spending $425,000 on a treatment system for one East Side well that was shut down in 2019 because of PFAS contamination, though the Madison Water Utility contended that Truax Field — not the burn pits — is the likely source of that contamination.

Discarded deadlines let polluted plume from military base spread unchecked | Local Government | madison.com

County sues

Earlier this year Dane County sued foam manufacturers in an attempt to recover “substantial costs” associated with cleanup of the airport.

The suit claims the defendants knew — or should have known — that using the foam, required by the Department of Defense and Federal Aviation Administration, would release PFAS to the air, soil and groundwater.

The lawsuit notes the chemicals, which can damage the liver, kidneys and nervous system, spread quickly in the environment, “contaminating soil, groundwater, and surface water” and are “readily absorbed in animal and human tissues.”

In emails with the county’s outside attorney, obtained through an open records request, assistant corporation counsel Amy Tutwiler discusses formulating media “talking points” for “how to respond to the concern that the health effects alleged in the complaint suggest pfas remediation should be occurring at a more rapid pace.”

Those talking points were not provided in response to the records request.

With PFAS cleanup years in the future, National Guard says its moving ‘quickly’ on Truax investigation | Science & Environment | madison.com

The county has since sued the DNR in an effort to strike conditions included in the airport’s stormwater permit intended to measure and limit PFAS in water that drains into Starkweather Creek.

The county contends the conditions are illegal because the DNR has already required cleanup under the remediation program and that they would be too costly.

County officials have said they did not know what the additional testing would cost, but according to documents obtained through an open records request it would be about $8,000 a year.

That case is on hold while the DNR conducts an internal review of the permit.”

More on PFAS Forever Chemicals

  1. Home – Madison Environmental Justice (mejo.us)
  2. About 3 — Military Poisons

  3. For decades, polluters knew PFAS chemicals were dangerous but hid risks from public | Environmental Working Group (ewg.org)

Urge Passage of the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics, PACT Act

from Buzz Davis,

Save Our VA – Vets for Peace in Tucson
813 S. Deer Meadow Loop, Tucson, AZ 85745

How burn pits may have raised veterans’ risk of rare cancers and respiratory illnesses

Twenty-five Republican senators who previously supported a bipartisan bill to expand health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits reversed their stance on Thursday.

Background:  Honoring our PACT Act of 2021

Another vote is scheduled in Senate – this week 

SEND YOUR SENATORS A MESSAGE TO VOTE YES

DAV | Contact your Senator to Vote “YES” on S. 3373, the Honoring Our PACT Act (quorum.us)

Whether it is Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or on US base water supplies (PFAS) across America, the generals at DOD and many politicians in America do not seem to care if we kill both our own soldiers and their families along will millions of other humans

From: Andrew Marshall, DAV National Commander and Lynn Prosser, Auxiliary National Commander To: Mr. Buzz Davis

Sent: Sat, Jul 30, 2022 8:59 am

Contact your Senator to Vote “YES”

on S. 3373,

the Honoring Our PACT Act

Dear Buzz,

The PACT Act will provide health care and presumptive benefits for veterans exposed to hazardous environments. After years of fighting, we are close to comprehensive toxic exposure legislation. We need your help again to keep the pressure on the Senate to get it passed.

On June 16, the Senate passed the Honoring Our PACT Act 84-14. Unfortunately, due to a procedural issue, the House returned it to the Senate. On June 24, the Senate tried to pass the corrected version; however, that was blocked by one Senator.

The House introduced the Senate version of the PACT Act and on July 13, they passed it out of the House with a vote of 342-88. The bill then went to the Senate. However, on Wednesday July 27, the bill was stopped from going to the Senate floor. Twenty-five Senators who voted to pass the PACT Act on June 16, voted on Wednesday to stop the bill, which has not been changed since the June 16 passage.

The Senate will be voting on the PACT Act on Monday and veterans suffering from illnesses and diseases related to burn pits, radiation exposure and Agent Orange cannot afford to wait. Urge your Senator to vote “YES” on the PACT Act.

Thank you for your support of America’s service-disabled veterans and their families.

Take Action through DAV, Disabled American Veterans 
and contact your elected officials, especially your Senators

Contact – Ron Johnson Senator from Wisconsin (senate.gov)

Contact | U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (senate.gov)

How the Madison Water Utility “disappeared” the PFAS in our drinking water

https://mejo.us/how-the-madison-water-utility-disappeared-the-pfas-in-our-drinking-water/

“In 2019 and early 2020, the PFAS levels detected in many of Madison’s municipal drinking water wells were big news–they raised public concerns, and legitimately so (see Wisconsin State Journal articles here and here).

In March 2019, the well with the highest combined PFOS and PFOA levels, Well 15 on Madison’s north side, was shut down–though the Water Utility continued to insist that the water was safe. [1][2]

In her January 2020 Isthmus cover story about Madison’s PFAS problem, Kori Feener cited highly-credentialed national scientists who argued that all PFAS should be considered together in assessing health effects, not just PFOS and PFOA, and that existing standards were not low enough to protect public health. At the time, the Wisconsin DHS had proposed a 20 part-per-trillion (ppt) groundwater standard for PFOA and PFOS combined. (This is still the proposed standard).

Feener quoted Dr. Laura Orlando, an environmental health professor at Boston University. “What we’re going to find out, it’s going to be like lead. The desired level is zero,” Orlando said. Dr. Elise Sunderland, professor of environmental science and engineering at Harvard University, pointed Feener to the work of her colleague, Dr. Philippe Grandjean, who found that a safe level of PFAS in drinking water would be 1 ppt to protect infants from effects of PFAS on their immune systems.

MEJO cited some of this science in its February 2019 comments to the Water Utility Board, asking that it direct the Utility to test more PFAS compounds than they had been testing to date–and at all wells, rather than just a handful.

Last week, the U.S. EPA issued “interim lifetime health advisory levels” of 0.004 ppt for PFOA and 0.02 ppt for PFOS.

The EPA fact sheet said “The interim updated health advisories for PFOA and PFOS are based on human studies in populations exposed to these chemicals. Human studies have found associations between PFOA and/or PFOS exposure and effects on the immune system, the cardiovascular system, human development (e.g., decreased birth weight), and cancer.” 

But not to worry…

During the pandemic, Madison’s drinking water PFAS problems were apparently magically cured!!

A table in the October 2019 Water Utility report showed these levels of PFAS in Madison’s wells. Feener’s story a few months later included the below graphic showing total PFAS levels in all of the wells:

 

 

 

In August 2020, the State Journal reported that PFAS was detected in every well.

But by late 2021, according to the Water Utility, the problem had somehow gone away. In part, this is because it was focusing on only PFOS and PFOA and comparing them to state standards. Also, though it didn’t admit this, it was also using different methods and different labs than it used in previous years.

In his December 10, 2021 Wisconsin State Journal story about the proposed DNR drinking water standard of 20 ppt for PFOA and PFOS, Chris Hubbuch wrote that Marcus Pearson, the MWU’s new public relations official, said “the proposed state standard — which is 10 times higher than PFOA and PFOS levels in any active city well — should reassure the more than 260,000 Madison-area residents ‘that our water is undeniably safe to drink.’”

And now again in summer 2022, the very confusing statements on the Madison Water Utility’s website (as of June 22) seem purposely designed to send the unsuspecting public the take away message that the many PFAS compounds detected in the past in most and/or all Madison wells have somehow disappeared. As for PFOS and PFOA, the website says they were “not detected” at any of the tested wells except Well 16, where some PFOS was detected.  So all we have to worry about now is Well 16 (on the west side).

Whew, what a huge relief!

Hmmm. Wait a minute. Is this true? How would these “forever chemicals”–so dubbed because of their extreme persistence and resistance to breaking down–disappear in most of our wells? No remediation has been done on any of the PFAS hotspots–the Dane County airport and military base, the many landfills sprinkled around the city, and more.

Well, they didn’t disappear. The 2022 water samples, from from a subset of Madison wells (not all of them), were analyzed (as part of a DNR voluntary testing program) using a method called Method 537.1 that the Water Utility knows very well underestimates and under-reports the levels that are actually there.

MWU water quality manager: Method 537.1 “may underreport the “true” amount of PFAS present in a water sample” and is “inadequate for quantifying the full range of PFAS present in Madison wells“

In October 2019, the Water Utility’s water quality manager Joe Grande, presented a report to the Water Utility Board showing the PFAS levels found in previous years using “Method 537.1” as compared to a method called “modified” Method 537.1. (This is more of a lab approach than a standard method; different labs have developed varying kinds of “modifications.” The MWU tested these methods from two different private labs.)

Based on these comparisons, Mr. Grande wrote (all highlighting is mine):

“Testing to date shows that EPA Method 537.1, when compared to the modified methods, consistently results in lower total PFAS concentrations due primarily to the fact that the method tests for a smaller number of PFAS – see Figure 2. Furthermore, our limited analysis also suggests that EPA Method 537.1 may produce results lower than what is obtained by the modified methods when only the same 18 PFAS are considered. In other words, EPA Method 537.1 may underreport the “true” amount of PFAS present in a water sample.” 

 

 

Grande concluded: “Although EPA Method 537.1 is the only standard method for the analysis of PFAS in drinking water, it may not be the best analytical method for quantifying PFAS in water.”

He continued: “The Water Utility has gained important experience with PFAS analytical methods and, in particular, challenges associated with accurately measuring low levels of ultra-trace contaminants such as PFAS in drinking water. While EPA Method 537.1 is the standard method for measuring PFAS in drinking water, the method proved inadequate for quantifying the full range of PFAS present in Madison wells.”

His recommendations to the Board were that the Water Utility: “Consistently use the same modified EPA Method 537 for all PFAS analysis to facilitate detection of a wider range of PFAS than EPA Method 537.1” and “Use EPA Method 537.1 if directed by US EPA or Wisconsin DNR unless the modified method has been designated an “equivalent or better” method for PFAS analysis in drinking water.”

What happened?

In 2020, the Utility used three different methods, and results again showed that Method 537.1, with higher detection limits (meaning that it can’t detect lower amounts), revealed fewer detections than the modified Method 537.1. In 2021, only the “ISO” method was used. [2]

Why did the Water Utility not follow Grande’s 2019 recommendations? Was the Water Utility directed to use Method 537.1 or the ISO method by EPA and/or DNR–or Water Utility leadership–beginning in 2021? Have the modified 537.1 methods not been designated as “equivalent or better”? Can the Water Utility still use the most sensitive “modified” method it used in the past to test PFAS in our wells, or is that no longer legitimate?

Maybe these debates about methods wouldn’t matter if these very low levels didn’t have health impacts. But given the EPA’s recently announced “interim lifetime health advisory levels” of 0.004 ppt for PFOA and 0.02 ppt for PFOS, we should be using available and approved methods that can detect the lowest possible levels in order to understand what people are drinking as accurately as we can.

I contacted the Water Utility to find out if the “modified” 537.1 methods are still legitimate and allowable per DNR regulations. The answer–YES. The modified 537.1 approach, Grande said, “is included as an approved alternative in NR 809 revisions.”

So the Water Utility could analyze all water samples using this more sensitive method, if it had the political will to do so.

Instead, the Water Utility is misleading the public

Last week, the Water Utility shared the DNR-project’s 2022 PFAS results, based on Method 537.1, on its PFAS webpage. Here’s what that looks like (as of today, June 22, 2022):

Summary of Test Results

  • None of the 18 PFAS tested were found at ten of the eighteen wells tested
  • PFOS (RL: <1 ppt) was detected at a single well (#16) and PFOA (RL: <2 ppt) was not detected at any of the 18 wells tested

Sorting through this confusing wording, the desired take home message seems to be that only one well (Well 16) has a low level of PFOS and all the other wells have no PFAS.  Yes, it mentions reporting levels for PFOS and PFOA, but most people reading this–having no clue what detection and reporting levels mean (or even that they exist)–will likely take this at face value

If anyone paid attention to PFAS news in the past, and remember it, a few might be perplexed about how this happened, but most people, with other more visible and pressing problems in their lives to worry about, will likely be pleasantly surprised and relieved that somehow the PFAS in the water they are drinking every day went away.

What about the other Madison wells, and the many other PFAS compounds found in previous years? They weren’t included in the 2022 testing. Method 537.1 only analyzes 18 PFAS compounds.

The Water Utility knows very well–as its water quality manager wrote explicitly in a report to the Water Utility Board in 2019–that “EPA Method 537.1 may underreport the “true” amount of PFAS present in a water sample” and “Although EPA Method 537.1 is the only standard method for the analysis of PFAS in drinking water, it may not be the best analytical method for quantifying PFAS in water” and “While EPA Method 537.1 is the standard method for measuring PFAS in drinking water, the method proved inadequate for quantifying the full range of PFAS present in Madison wells.”

The Utility’s webpage with the 2022 results says that they are based on Method 537.1. But it says nothing about its inadequacies, and how they explain the disappearance of PFAS detections compared to previous years.

Few (or no one) will know that the water quality manager recommended to the Water Utility Board in 2019 that the Utility “[c]onsistently use the same modified EPA Method 537 for all PFAS analysis to facilitate detection of a wider range of PFAS than EPA Method 537.1.”

And, of course, nobody paid any attention to MEJO’s 2019 comments to the Board, agreeing with the water quality manager’s recommendation to use the more sensitive modified EPA method 537.1, rather than the “inadequate” standard EPA Method 537.1, in the future. 

Then the pandemic happened, everyone was locked down, few participated in the Zoom Water Utility and TAC meetings (which hardly anyone knows about) and/or tracked what the Water Utility was up to.

Madison can do better: Will it? Unlikely

Given the EPA’s interim lifetime health advisory levels and the fact that the Water Utility can (per state regulations) use other methods besides standard Method 537.1 (including modified 537.1 methods) we think, as we recommended in 2019, the Water Utility should use the analytical methods with the lowest possible detection limits, whether that be modified Method 537.1 or another method.

But based on our experiences here, and how the Water Utility has disingenuously “disappeared” the PFAS in recent years, we expect it won’t. Madison officials certainly won’t demand it. In fact, the City of Madison would rather pretend that the PFAS in our drinking water went away. This approach is much better for the city’s “best of X Y Z” image and for attracting more residents to the rampantly growing city. Who wants to move to a city with poison in its water?

The rampant growth, as I’ve said repeatedly in recent posts, will mean our municipal wells will pump even harder and draw even more PFAS into them. But as long as we can pretend the PFAS isn’t there, who cares?

What’s the old saying? “Denial ain’t just a River in Egypt.”  (Mark Twain)

********

[1] Currently the Water Utility is planning to put a filter on the well before it is put back into service. How low can the available filters reduce PFAS levels to? Which one will the MWU use? What methods will be used to test the PFAS levels?  Attend the public meeting on June 30th and find out.

[2] At the April 2022 Water Utility Technical Advisory Committee meeting, Grande stated clearly that the standard Method 537.1 being used by DNR would result in results below the detection limits for all but one Madison well, Well 16. None of the TAC members expressed any concerns about that. That is indeed what results showed when testing was done in June under the DNR’s program.