New Plans to Combat PFAS, Protecting Kids and Families from Harmful Contaminants

MADISON, Wis. (CIVIC MEDIA) – Gov. Tony Evers announces ways to expand access to clean, safe drinking water and his plans for the upcoming executive budget.

“Whether it’s kids in the classroom, families at home, or our farmers and agricultural industries, Wisconsinites’ health and well-being depend on access to clean, safe water. Folks should be able to trust that the water coming from their tap is safe, but we know that’s not the case for far too many families and communities,” said Gov. Evers. “We have a responsibility to ensure Wisconsinites have access to safe, clean drinking water no matter where they live in our state. This is an urgent issue, and we cannot afford more years of inaction and obstruction. I urge Republicans and Democrats to work together to do what’s best for our kids and Wisconsin’s families by investing in critical efforts to improve water quality and get contaminants out of our water in our next state budget.”

Gov. Evers’ 2025-27 Executive Budget, which will be introduced on Feb. 18, 2025, will include a comprehensive plan to improve water quality across Wisconsin, including addressing PFAS contamination statewide. The governor announced today his budget proposal will: 

• Invest over $145 million to address PFAS contamination across Wisconsin, from private well owners to municipalities and across surface, drinking, and groundwater, including:
  • Creating a PFAS Community Grant Program to assist municipal drinking water systems with testing for and eliminating PFAS from drinking water through the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program;
  • Helping private well owners sample and test their private wells through a new County PFAS Well Testing Grant Program;  
  • Researching effective destruction and disposal methods of PFAS and implementing proven strategies to dispose and eliminate PFAS;  
  • Providing grants to local businesses and communities to help reduce or eliminate their use or release of PFAS into the environment;  
  • Conducting statewide research, including sampling and testing for PFAS to better understand its prevalence; 
  • Provide nearly $2 million in emergency resources to help provide safe, bottled water to households and communities impacted by water contamination; 
  • Protect innocent landowners like farmers who unknowingly spread biosolids containing PFAS on their land from having to foot the bill for the clean up; and
  • Increase biosolid sampling, testing, and remediation for PFAS in biosolids and allocate $7 million in new funding to help innocent landowners and farmers remediate PFAS contamination; 
• Expand eligibility for the state’s Well Compensation Grant Program to enable more Wisconsinites to participate in the program and make PFAS contaminants eligible so the program can support households replacing or adding a treatment system to their private water well; 
• Adopt the Chemical Level Enforcement and Remediation (CLEAR) Act, which will make several changes to Wisconsin’s laws aimed at improving water quality across our state, including but not limited to:
  • Exempting Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rulemaking relating to setting enforceable PFAS standards from the so-called “REINS Act,” which has stalled progress on strengthening Wisconsin’s water standards for years;  
  • Prohibiting land spreading of biosolids if the PFAS levels exceed levels set by DNR through permitting; 
  • Prioritizing PFAS-related municipal water infrastructure applications to the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program if PFAS levels exceed health advisory levels issued by DHS; and 
  • Requiring site-specific clean up planning for entities that handle PFAS chemicals. 

Today, the governor also announced he is approving a new rulemaking effort to strengthen PFAS standards statewide by adopting public health-based groundwater standards for six PFAS in light of newly available science. The six PFAS include the contaminant compounds perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS), and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA, commonly known as GenX Chemicals).

Gov. Evers’ announcement today of a comprehensive plan to clean up Wisconsin’s water and combat PFAS statewide builds upon longstanding efforts by the governor and the Evers Administration to ensure all Wisconsinites have access to safe, clean drinking water. Gov. Evers also declared 2025 the Year of the Kid in Wisconsin as part of his 2025 State of the State address and announced several new efforts to address childhood lead poisoning and ensure clean drinking water for all, including: 

• Directing over $6 million in his 2025-27 Executive Budget to support lead poisoning intervention and response;  
• Approving a DHS emergency rule strengthening Wisconsin’s lead standards so more kids and families will be eligible for these critical resources;  
• Providing $250,000 in his 2025-27 Executive Budget for grants to school districts and independent charter schools to replace water fountains with water bottle filling stations with a water filtration component to reduce contaminants in water, including lead and chlorine; and  
• Investing an additional $5 million in federal funds to support the expanded Well Compensation and Well Abandonment Grant Program to continue the Evers Administration’s work getting harmful contaminants out of water wells. 

STRENGTHENING PFAS STANDARDS STATEWIDE
Gov. Evers today announced he is approving a new rulemaking effort to strengthen PFAS standards statewide by adopting public health-based for six PFAS in light of newly available science and brand-new recommendations from DHS. The move by Gov. Evers today is aimed at making sure Wisconsinites have access to clean and safe drinking water. This marks the 12th time that DNR has requested groundwater standards since Wisconsin’s groundwater law went into effect in the 1980s.

Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water across Wisconsin, which makes ensuring groundwater is clean and free of harmful contaminants key to protecting public health and ensuring Wisconsin’s kids and families are healthy and safe. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved maximum contaminant levels for six types of PFAS in public drinking water, there are currently no state or federal PFAS standards currently in place for groundwater. Furthermore, the drinking water standards in place at the state level do not apply to private well owners, and private well owners are also solely responsible for any costs associated with voluntary actions to sample or treat private well water.

The governor’s approval today begins the rulemaking process to adopt groundwater standards for six PFAS, including the contaminant compounds perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS), and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA, commonly known as GenX Chemicals).

After the EPA finalized federal drinking water standards for six PFAS in April 2024, DNR requested that DHS update public health groundwater standard recommendations for the six types of PFAS included in the EPA’s federal drinking water standards. Since this time, health officials extensively reviewed scientific literature about each substance, using federal quality standards as a starting point when available, and provided written rationale for each enforcement standard. State law outlines a process that DHS and DNR follow, ensuring a scientifically rigorous review of available technical information and clarity on how recommended groundwater standards are selected.   

This new rulemaking process will help address PFAS contamination across Wisconsin, ensuring folks and families have clean, safe drinking water. Wisconsin groundwater quality standards are used by all agencies as design standards for facilities, practices, and activities regulated by the state that can affect groundwater. These activities include contamination site cleanup, authorized discharges of treated liquid and solid waste, use of approved agricultural chemicals, regulation of solid waste landfills, and beneficial use of industrial byproducts. They also are used to determine when private water supplies are contaminated and may be eligible for assistance, such as the provision of emergency short-term bottled water and funding assistance for a new water well or treatment system through the Well Compensation Grant Program. 

Strengthening standards for and removing contaminants in Wisconsin’s water supplies, including in our state’s groundwater, has been a top priority for Gov. Evers and the Evers Administration since the governor first took office in 2019. However, setting science- and evidence-based standards for PFAS in groundwater have been obstructed for years by Republican members of the Natural Resources Board and laws enacted by the Republican-led Legislature that require the Evers Administration to stop all rule promulgation if rules exceed a certain threshold for cost of implementation.

In 2019, at the request of Gov. Evers, the DNR began work to establish standards for two types of PFAS (PFOA and PFOS) in groundwater, surface water, and drinking water. The then-Republican-controlled Natural Resources Board approved surface water and drinking water standards in August 2022 but rejected standards for PFAS in groundwater. The decision forced the DNR to restart the rulemaking process for these groundwater standards.

In 2022, the DNR initiated a third rulemaking effort to set groundwater standards for four PFAS: PFOA, PFOS, PFBS, HFPO-DA (commonly known as GenX). In December 2023, the DNR finalized an economic impact analysis for the proposed rule, which effectively forced the Evers Administration to suspend the rulemaking process due to exceeding a threshold passed by Republican lawmakers under the Walker Administration—the so-called “REINS Act”—aimed at expanding the Wisconsin State Legislature’s oversight over administrative rule promulgation.

Consequently, the Evers Administration had to suspend all work on the proposed groundwater standards rule and urged the Legislature to pass an exception to allow the rulemaking process to continue. Despite repeated requests by Gov. Evers and the Evers Administration to create a statutory exemption to allow science-based PFAS standards for groundwater to be set, the Republican-led Legislature has declined to do so to date and has taken no action to allow rulemaking to continue as of this writing. As a result, the scope statement the Evers Administration proposed years ago will expire on March 12, 2025, forcing the rulemaking process to begin all over again.

The rulemaking Gov. Evers approved today further strengthens the standards the Evers Administration had previously proposed based on updated science and evidence that factored into new recommendations from the DHS. 

ADDRESSING PFAS CONTAMINATION STATEWIDE
Since taking office, identifying and remediating contamination in ground, surface, and drinking water has been a top priority for Gov. Evers and the Evers Administration. Gov. Evers declared 2019 the Year of Clean Drinking Water to highlight the need for meaningful investments to ensure Wisconsinites have clean, safe drinking water that is free of harmful contaminants like PFAS, lead, and nitrate. Additionally, Gov. Evers created the PFAS Action Council to develop a statewide PFAS Action Plan, which led to key protections such as Wisconsin’s first enforceable statewide standards for PFAS in surface and drinking water.

Building upon this work, the final 2023-25 biennial budget signed by Gov. Evers included a $125 million investment to address and prevent PFAS contamination statewide—one of the first real and meaningful investments by Republican legislators to address PFAS. Republican lawmakers who control the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance have refused to release those funds to date, which were approved now nearly 600 days ago.

The governor’s 2025-27 Executive Budget proposal once again outlines a comprehensive plan to address PFAS contamination for both private well owners and municipalities across surface, drinking, and groundwater, and allocates over $145 million to address PFAS head-on, which includes the $125 million secured through the 2023-25 biennial budget process. Gov. Evers’ 2025-27 Executive Budget proposals to improve water quality, combat PFAS and water contaminants, and expand access to clean and safe drinking water are detailed below.

First, Gov. Evers proposes transferring the full $125 million balance of the PFAS Trust Fund to the DNR to enable the DNR to immediately begin assisting communities and homeowners struggling with PFAS contamination. DNR will utilize this funding in addition to newly allocated funding to: 

• Create a PFAS Community Grant Program to assist municipal drinking water systems with testing for and eliminating PFAS from drinking water, in partnership with the Safe Drinking Water Loan program ($96.4 million); 
• Help private well owners sample and test their private wells through a new County PFAS Well Testing Grant Program ($4 million); 
• Research effective destruction and disposal methods of PFAS and implement proven strategies to dispose and eliminate PFAS ($14.65 million);  
• Provide grants to local businesses and communities to help reduce or eliminate their use or release of PFAS into the environment ($6.35 million); and  
• Conduct statewide research, including sampling and testing for PFAS to better understand its prevalence ($11.81 million).  

The governor’s comprehensive PFAS plan also includes an additional $1.8 million for emergency response to PFAS contamination, such as the provision of safe, bottled water to impacted households.Importantly, Gov. Evers’ proposal includes liability protections from remediation requirements for innocent landowners who unknowingly spread biosolids containing PFAS on their land. A farmer who accepted biosolids for land spreading on their fields should not be held responsible for remediating PFAS contamination if they did not know PFAS was in those biosolids, and this proposal ensures those folks are not held financially responsible for the clean up. Gov. Evers’ proposal allocates $7 million in new funding for sampling, testing, and remediation of PFAS contamination for innocent landowners, ensuring the harmful chemicals are removed and innocent landowners’ health is protected. The proposal also expands and increases the frequency of biosolids sampling and testing for PFAS and requires authorized biosolid spreaders to report to the landowner if PFAS is detected in their biosolids, helping prevent contaminated biosolids from being land spread and better protecting Wisconsin land and waters.Gov. Evers is also proposing expanding eligibility for the state’s Well Compensation Grant Program to allow many more Wisconsinites to access this program, including adding PFAS contamination to the list of contaminants eligible for funding to replace or add a treatment system to a household’s contaminated private water well. Modeled off the federally funded Well Compensation Grant Program the governor created in 2022, these eligibility updates will significantly increase participation and use of this critical program. As he has proposed previously, the governor’s 2025-27 Executive Budget will also recommend providing the appropriate, needed staffing at the DNR and DHS to quickly and effectively respond to discovered PFAS contamination. This includes nearly $1.6 million over the biennium and 10 Full-time equivalent positions (FTE) at DNR and $185,400 over the biennium and one FTE at DHS. DHS is also allocated $1.26 million to conduct biomonitoring studies across the state to assess Wisconsinite’s PFAS exposure level.Finally, the governor is also recommending the adoption of major policies in the CLEAR Act, first introduced by Gov. Evers in 2021 with Democratic lawmakers. This includes: 

• Exempting DNR rulemaking relating to setting enforceable PFAS standards from the REINS Act; 
• Prohibiting land spreading of biosolids if the PFAS levels exceed levels set by DNR in a WPDES permit; 
• Requiring a person who generates solid or hazardous waste at a site or facility under investigation by DNR to provide DNR with access to information relating to any transportation to or treatment, storage, or disposal at another site, facility, or location; 
• Authorizing DNR to require proof of financial responsibility from individuals or businesses that possess or control PFAS. Financial responsibility would be intended to ensure means of addressing potential discharges or contamination, including emergency responses, remedial action, and long-term care of contaminated sites; 
• Enabling the DNR to prioritize PFAS-related water infrastructure applications from municipalities to the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program in the same way as other contaminants if the proposed project addresses PFAS levels above DHS-recommended health advisory levels; 
• Requiring site-specific clean up planning for entities that handle PFAS chemicals, and; 
• Allowing DNR to appoint a neutral, third-party mediator to help negotiate between municipalities and responsible parties when one municipality needs to obtain an alternate water source or connect to a water source within a different municipality as a result of PFAS contamination. 

BACKGROUND ON PFAS CONTAMINANTS
PFAS are per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, synthetic chemicals known to be toxic, mobile, and persistent in the environment, meaning they do not break down naturally. According to the EPA, PFAS are a group of manufactured chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s, and current research suggests exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to: 

• Reproductive effects such as decreased fertility or increased high blood pressure in pregnant women; 
• Developmental effects or delays in children, including low birth weight, accelerated puberty, bone variations, or behavioral changes; 
• Increased risk of some cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers; 
• Reduced ability of the body’s immune system to fight infections, including reduced vaccine response; 
• Interference with the body’s natural hormones; and 
• Increased cholesterol levels and/or risk of obesity. 

PFAS are a group of human-made chemicals used for decades in numerous products, including non-stick cookware, fast food wrappers, stain-resistant sprays, and certain types of firefighting foam. PFAS chemicals resist degradation in the environment and accumulate in the body. These contaminants are linked to serious adverse health effects in humans and animals. Epidemiologic studies have shown that potential adverse human health effects from exposure to some PFAS include increased serum cholesterol, immune dysregulation, pregnancy-induced hypertension, liver damage, and kidney and testicular cancers. Exposure to certain types of PFAS is also associated with low birth weight in humans, suppressed immune system response, dyslipidemia, impaired kidney function, and delayed onset of menstruation.