CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – This week Wausau’s city council voted to sue the manufacturers of PFAS, or forever chemicals, that have contaminated the drinking water supply.
How exactly does the city go into court and win? In Wausau, the source of forever chemicals hasn’t been determined. So who exactly should the city sue? Maybe we’ll go after the companies that made firefighting foam. It’s thought to be one of the leading sources of PFAS. But the chemicals at the time the foam was being made a used were unknown. The foam was considered a godsend for fighting electrical fires or in other situation where water couldn’t be used. Drinking water contamination was an unknown consequence. Would we sue our own fire department for using a product as it was intended.
In many cases, where PFAS comes from in unknown. Consider the Town of Stella in Oneida County. They’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no commercial or manufacturing activity anywhere nearby. And yet their groundwater is contaminated. Where it came from is a mystery.
There’s some speculation that toilet paper could be a source of PFAS – not the manufacturing at a paper mill – but the using and flushing it. Are you and I to blame when we use the toilet?
Wausau could join a larger class action lawsuit. We’d be throwing in with some much bigger cities and would share, likely a very small share, of any judgement. Or the city could go-it-alone, having to pay for its own lawyers and its own experts in a lawsuit that may not bear fruit.
This lawsuit is a likely loser. It gives the illusion that something is being done.
Chris Conley
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