Local officials want to reassure residents about their drinking water, even amid questions about health risks and who will pay to clean up the contamination.
Tag: water pollution
Posted inEnvironment
Nitrate pours into Mississippi River and other U.S. waterways, report says
Regulated industries in 2020 released at least 94.5 million pounds of potentially harmful nitrates into the Mississippi River basin. But some releases go untallied.
Posted inEnvironment, Health & Welfare
Wisconsin’s French Island faces stark choices as PFAS water crisis lingers
A lifeline could disappear due to a pollution lawsuit that has implications for the 1.7 million Wisconsinites who rely on private wells.
Posted inEnvironment, Health & Welfare
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind among French Island residents grappling with PFAS contamination
‘There’s nothing that hits you in the gut harder than the thought that you don’t have safe drinking water,’ the retiring Democrat says.
Posted inEnvironment
Testing the waters: How groups monitor toxic algae in the absence of state testing
Toxic blue-green algae can sicken people and animals. Few states have routine testing programs to check for algae, so some local and volunteer groups are stepping in to fill that gap.
Posted inEnvironment
‘Something has to be done’: Living along Madison’s Starkweather Creek, one of Wisconsin’s most polluted waterways.
The latest contaminants of concern in the creek draining Madison’s East Side: PFAS, hazardous chemicals being flagged across Wisconsin.
Posted inEnvironment
‘The middle of a massive contamination’: Residents of Wisconsin region struggle with aftereffects of dangerous ‘forever chemicals’
Four years after a facility disclosed water contamination in the surrounding community, residents and locals deal with the impact of PFAS.
Posted inEnvironment, Failure at the Faucet, Health & Welfare, Water Watch Wisconsin
Wisconsin strontium levels among highest in U.S. drinking water supplies
Eastern Wisconsin has among the highest levels of the heavy metal strontium in drinking water. Limits may be on the way for this unregulated contaminant.
Posted inEnvironment, Failure at the Faucet, Health & Welfare, Water Watch Wisconsin
As wells go deeper, radium levels rise in state tap water
As communities grow and pump more groundwater, radium from deep bedrock is contaminating dozens of water systems. The city of Waukesha wants to tap into Lake Michigan to solve its radium problem.
Posted inFailure at the Faucet, Government, Health & Welfare, Water Watch Wisconsin
Lead poisoning would trigger tap water test under proposal
Two Democratic lawmakers want the state Department of Health Services to investigate drinking water as a possible source when children are lead poisoned. The proposal also greatly lowers the blood lead levels that would trigger an investigation.
Posted inFailure at the Faucet, Government, Health & Welfare, Water Watch Wisconsin
First in the nation: City of Madison replaced all lead pipes
The Madison Water Utility was the first major utility in the nation to demonstrate that a full replacement of both the public and the private portions of lead service lines was possible.
Posted inFailure at the Faucet, Government, Health & Welfare, Water Watch Wisconsin
Lead in drinking water poses danger for children, pregnant women
Nearly 4,000 children in Wisconsin were diagnosed with elevated levels of lead in their blood in 2014, though the number has fallen over the years thanks in part to bans on lead in paint and gasoline. Unlike in Flint, Michigan, however, no one knows how much lead in the drinking water contributes to elevated blood lead levels in Wisconsin. There are no requirements to test the drinking water when a child is lead poisoned.