WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg says the city is already seeing some promising results from a pilot study aimed at finding a way to remove PFAS contamination from the city’s drinking water.
“We have been working on testing several different kinds of resins, powder activated carbon, and granular activated carbon,” said Rosenberg. “And some of the resins have been very promising. While some of the things we’ve been seeing with the powder activated carbon are interesting in how it doesn’t interact with our anti-corrosion treatment.”
Rosenberg says they have a short-term goal of finding a way to remove the chemicals using the current drinking water treatment plant setup. The long-term goal remains to clean the chemicals out by August when the new drinking water treatment plant comes online.
“We may be getting to a point where we might be ready to talk about some of these results,” she added. “I’m excited about where we are going and that we are seeing some results.”
The city is still looking to bring a consulting firm on board in the next few weeks to guide the setup of the new plant, which will be the first one in Wisconsin certified to remove PFAS. Last week the city’s water works commission heard presentations from six different firms vying for that job; all of which were based in Wisconsin. She says that’s important because the water here is different than water in other parts of the nation.
They also need to make sure that the treatment won’t upset the anti-corrosion process that the utility uses to keep lead from leaking into the water as it’s being delivered to users.
“We need to make sure the solutions aren’t exacerbating [another] problem,” she added.
The city will continue to distribute bottled water and filter pitchers to residents as a short-term solution. Those who have signed up to claim free filters and pitchers should continue to check the email address they used during the signup process for a notification when it’s their turn to pick up. The city is using a bulk mail system to send those notifications, so the message could get redirected to a spam or junk folder.
Other topics Mayor Rosenberg discussed with WSAU’s Mike Leischner include:
Start of video- PFAS update and process of selecting a consulting firm to help the city.
7:30- Election recap
12:00- Policing task force recommendation
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