Wisconsin legislation regarding the cleanup of environmentally dangerous chemicals has been held up for roughly a year, halting the cleanup and removal process, according to PBS Wisconsin. Gov. Tony Evers and Republican lawmakers disagree over who should be responsible for cleaning up pre- and polyfluoroalkyl substances on residential and agricultural properties.
PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are present in more than 12,000 compounds found in consumer products, the most common being nonstick cookware, food wrappers, cleaning products and clothing items labeled waterproof or stain-repellent, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
This family of toxic substances has contaminated water, soil and air for years in Wisconsin, leading to more than 100 case files with the Wisconsin DNR, according to the Wisconsin Watch.
Many of these PFAS are found on residential and agricultural land, making it harmful for those inhabiting it. Evers proposes that innocent landowners — those who unknowingly purchased land contaminated with the chemicals — pay for clean-up and disposal efforts.
But Republican lawmakers favor an innocent landowner exemption and do not believe that landowners should have to pay. Instead, Republican lawmakers want taxpayer dollars to be allocated to remedy PFAS contamination.
Evers introduced a two-year budget proposal Feb. 18, which takes a narrower approach and exempts some landowners from paying these fines. This proposal also states landowners give the Wisconsin DNR access to assess their property and not worsen conditions.
The issue pertains to what constitutes a landowner as innocent, and how can they prove they unknowingly purchased contaminated land, according to professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and Associate Dean of Education and Faculty Affairs at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Steph Tai.
“The innocent landowner exemption is not an automatically bad policy, but that it is easy to take advantage of,” Tai said.
Tai said a red flag when investigating if property owners are truly innocent is whether or not the land was purchased at an extremely cheap price. This would indicate that there was something wrong with it and should have prompted further investigation. Therefore, the new landowners were not doing their due diligence and could be held liable, according to Tai.
Officials may be worried that the exemption for innocent landowners is too broad and may result in a larger responsibility for cleanup, Tai said.
Tai said if this policy does not change, people will find loopholes. This would result in no money for cleanup, meaning state allocation of funds would need to be used and would overall slow down the cleanup process. The Republican lawmakers also wish to withhold $125 million in aid for PFAS affected communities until change is enacted first, arguing that it is the only thing that would help, according to PBS Wisconsin.
There is also great concern about the consequences of delayed employment of funds and how it would affect the community. Many communities feel strongly about cleanup efforts and lack thereof might result in a recoil of where favor falls politically, Tai said. Many areas impacted by PFAS may not have the resources for cleanup, and communities could push back against GOP lawmakers who are blocking the funding.
The issue of who should be held accountable when it comes to paying for cleanup and removal efforts is an ongoing battle, Professor of Grassland Ecology Randall Jackson said.
“Where does the responsibility usually go? This falls on society in general,” Jackson said. “Tax payers, one way or the other, are going to have to foot the bill whether it’s a cleanup or avoidance and land isn’t farmable.”
Almost all of the initial companies that have contributed most to pollution have gone bankrupt exempting them from liability, Tai said. This leaves no one to bear the burden financially when it comes to concerns over health and the agriculture industry, which is extremely prevalent in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has 58,521 farms sitting on over 13.7 million acres of land producing $16.7 billion of agricultural products earning itself a number 10 ranking for value of products produced among the 50 states, according to the USDA.
“Governor Evers is attempting to spread the debt through the innocent landowners approach,” Jackson said.
Tai explains this approach is modeled after Superfund — a federal law addressing hazardous waste sites, allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to clean them up and hold responsible parties accountable for cleanup costs.
Evers is set to vote again on the innocent landowner exemption, according to PBS Wisconsin. If he vetoes once again, there is concern that allocation of funds will continue to be held up and progress will be stalled, Tai said. This continued setback could potentially have harmful effects on humans through consumption of wildlife and livestock that lives on contaminated land.
“When PFAS is spread onto soil and crops are grown it finds its way onto the crops, and then those crops are fed to livestock … eventually [PFAS] finds its way into the milk and meat that comes from the livestock or the plants that we directly consume … and then it is found inside of us,” Jackson said.
