MOSINEE, WI (WSAU) — We’ve heard a lot about PFAS contamination in the Wausau area, but there’s one municipality that’s been relatively quiet on the issue so far.
That doesn’t mean Mosinee Mayor Brent Jacobson and his staff have been silent on the issue though. “As soon as that news came out, I talked with staff including my City Administrator and we talked with public works. We then got the blessing from the city council to get financing in place for testing.”
Jacobson says that testing has been ordered from the DNR but they will have to wait for it. “They are busy assisting others with testing right now and some that, as I understand it, have to re-test based on whether they fall in a certain range. We are a little bit down the line.”
He says he doesn’t want residents to panic over the issue and adds that he’s cautiously optimistic that the city is in a good place. That’s because the last redesign of their drinking water treatment plant included carbon-based filtration, which is known to remove the emerging contaminants. Those updates date back to 2015 and included work on two wells in addition to updating equipment and filtration systems in the plant. He says the majority of the city’s customers are receiving water that passes through that plant.
“We’re feeling good about that, but we certainly have PFAS on our radar like other municipalities. We will take a look at it, and move forward with whatever it is we have to do should we have to do something about it,” added Jacobson.
The majority of municipal water systems in the Wausau area have discovered measurable amounts of PFAS in their water supply including Rothschild, Weston, Rib Mountain, and Wausau. Some have been forced to shut down wells to get under the DHS recommended standard of 20 parts per trillion, which has not been implemented by the state of Wisconsin but has been adopted as the standard in other areas. In Wausau’s case, PFAS have been found in all six of their wells. That’s led the city to distribute in-home filtration systems to residents in the form of pitchers and filters until the city can bring its new drinking water treatment plant online later this summer.
Other items Jacobson talked about with WSAU’s Mike Leischner include:
Start of video: PFAS
7:20- Construction season including the city’s newest hotel and street projects
12:00- New athletic performance center
14:40- Bringing new flights to CWA
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