[Press Release] Wisconsin state agencies announce additional groundwater quality standard recommendations

Wisconsin Department of Health Services | November 6, 2020

Read the full press release (Wisconsin Department of Health Services)

“State health officials today provided groundwater quality standards recommendations for 22 substances to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP). These recommendations include 12 per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and 6 pesticides.

“These recommendations demonstrate our ongoing commitment to ensuring clean, safe drinking water for Wisconsin residents,” said DHS Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk. “With this essential information in hand, we continue our vital work to protect this precious resource.

DNR provided a list of 40 substances for DHS to review in April 2019. Since this time, health officials extensively reviewed scientific literature about each substance, using federal quality standards as a starting point when available, and created a document describing the 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. Due to limited availability of health information, DHS did not recommend standards for 18 of the substances.

When the recommendations are complete, the DNR will propose a rule(link is external) to update or create new standards based on these recommendations. Rulemaking is an extensive process that takes several years. During this time, there will be several opportunities for the public to comment on the proposed rule.

‘With these recommendations, the DNR will continue to make progress on ensuring clean drinking water for all Wisconsinites,’ said Darsi Foss, Environmental Management Division Administrator for the DNR. ‘We look forward to involving the public in the scientifically rigorous review of available technical information that will ensue within the rulemaking process.’

Wisconsin’s groundwater quality standards are used for regulating facilities, practices and activities that can affect groundwater. They apply to bottled water, approved agricultural chemicals, contamination site cleanup, regulation of solid waste landfills, and more. This is the 11th time that DNR has requested groundwater standards since Wisconsin’s groundwater law went into effect in the 1980s…”

This content provided by the PFAS Project.