CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – This was a small item on our newswire yesterday. Since it doesn’t apply to our listening area, it didn’t make it on-air. But I took note.
In Eau Claire, water rates are going up 4%. The water works there says the typical residential bill will rise from $74 to $77 per quarter. While no one likes increases, I had a moment of pause while writing my $165 check for Wausau water, some of the most expensive water in the state.
Eau Claire, just like Wausau, is also building a new filtration system to deal with PFAS, or forever chemicals.
So what’s the difference from there to here? It’s this: Wausau, and former mayor Katie Rosenberg, made a horrible decision to filter Wausau’s water to zero PFAS. Filtering to zero is incredibly expensive. Since Wausau began marching to zero, federal regulations have come out that cap PFAS at 4-parts-per-trillion.
Some communities have gotten under the federal regulations by shutting down their most contaminated wells, and drilling new, non-contaminated wells. When the water is mixed together, they are in compliance.
Wausau didn’t even try the blended approach. We were immediately launched into a frenzy-to-zero. Wausau immediately spent money on special filters which were snapped up by a panicked public in a matter of days. Then we set up a temporary ricin filtration system. Replacing the filters was ridiculously expensive. Then we scrapped the temporary filtration in favor of permanent filtration at our new treatment plant. The former mayor proposed paying for it by suing the companies that made products that caused the PFAS contamination. This lawsuit is a loser. PFAS wasn’t regulated then. Where it came from is difficult or impossible to prove. And getting money from companies that were in compliance at the time is unlikely.
Wausau’s water bills are held hostage to bad decisions from the past. And there’s a consequence to having sky-high water rates. No company that uses large amounts of water will ever come to Wausau. Those factories – and those jobs – will go to Eau Claire, where the water bills are half what we pay.
Chris Conley
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