CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – ‘Shall the City of Wausau’s Water Works spend $11.7-million on a Granular Activated Carbon Filtration System?’
Someone should begin a petition drive, today, to put that question before the voters in Wausau.
There are many reasons to vote ‘no’.
First, the GAC, which is Wausau’s permanent solution to forever chemicals in the drinking water, is phenomenally expensive. Wausau is using a temporary filtration system at its new water treatment plant now. It uses resin to filter the water, which needs to be replaced periodically. How often? No one knows for sure. The best guess is once a year, at a cost of $800,000. It could be more often than that; it could be longer.
Well, the current temporary fix is much, much cheaper than the proposed permanent solution. We could replace resin for nearly a decade and still come out ahead financially. What what might happen during that time? Permanent state and federal standards for PFAS might be developed. Those standards will not possibly be ‘zero’, which is the city’s current goal. And during that time more state and federal aid is likely to pay for any remediation, instead of shifting all of those costs onto the ratepayers. Perhaps the next 10 years will bring is newer, cheaper technology than what we’re being asked to pay for today.
We are told that a hefty rate increase, giving Wausau the most expensive water in the state, is a foregone conclusion. It is not. State regulators may roll it back. And a voter initiative that blocks the GAC would turn the rate case on its head. Future water rates would be based on the current, temporary filtration program. And the public would be right to push back against the Wausau Water Works, and its chair Mayor Katie Rosenberg. They’ve succeeded only in coming up with the most expensive solution. The public should tell them to go back to the drawing board.
Chris Conley
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