CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) Baseball philosopher Yogi Berra once went into a pizzeria. “Would you like your pizza cut into eight slices, or six?” he was asked.
“Six… I could never eat eight slices.”
Well, that’s what might happen with your water bill in Wausau.
The unfunded cost of a new PFAS filtration system is about $6-million. That’s about $100 more for the typical residential customer. Wausau bills its water customers quarterly. Mayor Katie Rosenberg, who chairs the Wausau Water Works, proposes changing to monthly billing. It’s a way of covering up the out-of-control costs. You’ll pay $33 a month more. Maybe you won’t notice. But the bill will come every month.
The proposed reverse ionization filtration reduces PFAS levels to almost zero, but it’s very expensive.
There are new federal and state standards for PFAS. The federal standard is 100-parts-per-trillion; the state is 70-PPT. Those are achievable goals. Zero, or undetectable, is not. And the added benefit of staying within the state and federal limits is that unfunded mandates are a very touchy subject in Madison and Washington. Communities would likely be reimbursed to get into compliance. Wausau is hoping for a bridge loan for its zero-PFAS filers. Even that would have to be paid back, on the backs of the ratepayers.
As I’ve pointed out before, PFAS levels are much more liberal in other nations that we consider environmental champions, like Canada, Germany and Australia. And forever chemicals are in everything from cosmetics to mattress covers… raingear and plastic forks… microwave popcorn to sippy cups.
No one wants unnecessary exposure to PFAS. This is a case where a reasonable risk vs. cost analysis is needed. And we should stop pretending that there’s an unlimited amount of money to overcompensate.
Chris Conley
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