The Common Council Executive Committee decided not to do a city-county task force on PFAS, but have asked for a memo about what the City-County Public Health Department is doing and a new website, regular legal updates from the City Attorney about the from the DNR naming the City as a possible contributor and they will consider next steps after that.
VIDEO
You can follow along with the meeting here if you are interested.
PFAS COMMITTEE
Martin Griffin from the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District is there available to answer questions.
Alder Marsha Rummel says someone should ask him a question, he has been to every meeting where this has been on the agenda. Laughter, he says no need.
Grant Foster says they are doing some good work on this topic but wants to know his opinion on this committee or other ideas to keep this issue in front of them.
Griffin says that their broad concern is that when PFAS is talked about, it is looked at holistically and all the dominos that are affected are looked at. They are the waste water treatment plant and they are only a little piece of the journey of PFAS and he wants to make sure all parties are involved. He thought a task force sounded good to him, but any model that makes sure all voices are heard is what they are looking for.
Foster asks about how the action at the state level would fill this purpose. Can this be covered at the state level or is there value in a local level body. Griffin says you want a strong national or local voice to have consistency, but as we have seen with this topic they are moving much slower and this is a concern of a lot of people and any model that gets you to the speed that you want to address something, he thinks controlling that yourself is always the best choice.
Alder Marsha Rummel says a lot has happened since the first version was introduced. Since that time Gov. Evers made executive order #40 which calls for the creation of a multi-agency workgroup on PFAS which didn’t exist when we were getting started and one of the early ideas was to create a clearinghouse. They are proposing to do that as part of their work. When she went to talk to the county and other stakeholders Sharon Corrigan wanted to work through Public Health. Part of me resisted, and she thought probably that is the way to go and we should place this on file. She thinks public health will start to provide us more information about the scope of their work on PFAS and then she will take that information and if there is work that we need to do, like a holistic approach between water utility, sewerage district, public health, then we could create a new resolution that directs the Board of Public Health to have a work group or quarterly meetings or something to be determined that would gather information. She has had meetings with public health staff and they are about to introduce a website that will be a clearing house for the interim period before the state launches their website. That was one of the purposes of the task force. She hasn’t seen it yet, so she doesn’t know if that satisfies her dream of a clearinghouse, but she says they can add things. They have been working with them to reach out to the county. We have a water utility that has done testing, but others who have not, like people with public wells and burn pits at the air port. There are all kinds of hot spots that are still local that need attention. She doesn’t want to say that the state will take care of it, but she’s not sure the independent version of the task force is the way since life has evolved since it was first introduced. She asks that it be placed on file.
Shiva Bidar adds that her conversation with County Board Chair Sharon Corrigan was that they wanted something in writing from public health on what they are doing and planning to do so we have clarity about the scope of their work. Then there would be additional requests to support that work and regular reporting. The first step was to get a written memo to Alders and County Board Supervisors. Then they would assess if that is enough. She says they have launched a PFAS landing page with a lot of information on their website.
Rebecca Kemble says another thing that has happened since then is that the City of Madison got a letter naming them a responsible party for the contamination flowing into Starkweather Creek. She says the need is not just for information, but the council should have some oversight about how the city is responding to that. There are some deadlines and actions that are demanded by this letter from the state of both the airport, the National Guard and the city. She thinks that the task force might not be the thing, but the council needs a way to not just receive information, but to be on top of our legal responsibilities here.
Tag Evers agrees. He says someone from Public Health seemed resistance from the staff. He says the activism in our community and the impacted residents is such that he doesn’t want to see it entrusted to any body without clarity without sufficient oversight. Perhaps pubic health has become more motivated and engaged in this than I sensed at the previous meeting. Am I just imagining that or was there some tension, it seemed like public health was not as committee to the process.
Rummel says that she thinks the resolution was about staffing a new committee with a broad view. There may be other things going on. Also the Department of Health Services and the DNR have issues new state regulations which now Public Health has regulatory authority to enforce that wasn’t here when we started. That 20 parts per trillion is triggered at 10%, so that’s 2 parts per trillion and they have to start helping. I’m not sure what that looks like, but they have to collaborate with those who might be affected.
Sheri Carter asks who the letter went to. Kemble says the air national guard, the airport and the city of Madison, from the DNR. Carter asks if it went to the mayor’s office. I think they said yes.
Carter asks Attorney Michael May what the impact of the letter is. May says that we are a “potentially” responsible party and that is a key word. It starts the investigation to determine what has caused the high levels of PFAS in Starkweather Creek and they have identified three entities that may be responsible for that and as they go forward they will attempt to figure out who has the greatest liability and who they can force to do something about it. There may be more people added and there will likely be some cross finger pointing as it goes forward. Normally in the environmental cases it is the DNR that gets the ball rolling to clean up and make sure it doesn’t happen in the future. The range of remedies are unknown in terms of the costs and what we, the county or air national guard might be required to do. It’s the beginning of the process. City staff are looking at it and he thinks there will be a generally meeting with the DNR and responsible parties in the future.
Bidar says the council would like to be appraised of the next steps and legal processes as it unfolds. Including all council members would like to see the letter. May says he didn’t know the council members hadn’t seen it and he hasn’t seen it himself. Kemble is sending it to everyone right now. Bidar says this is a different matter than they are talking about right now, but she is asking for the City Attorney’s office to keep the council appraised when there are updates. May recommends that they get in touch with them on a regular basis and put us on the agenda for updates. Bidar says that you might have updates of importance between the meetings and please keep us updates.
Carter wants it on the council agenda so we all hear it at one time, updates if we have any.
Foster says that he is not interested in creating new bodies we don’t need to create and TFOGs has unidentified that as being created, and he wants a high bar before they create another body. On the other hand, in terms of all the different spheres of the work that we are charged with, he feels very disconnected from Public Health and feels like the things that come to the common council are limited. His concern is that things happening there will continue to be far removed from the council and that doesn’t make him super encouraged. The other thing is that there is a legal aspect not in public health’s fear, and there was an article about PFAS in artificial turf and we just put it in Breese Stevens and a new dog park at Brittingham. Are we to assume parks has seen that news article and if we should continue as policy to use it. Maybe that would be covered by public health but maybe not because its a parks issue. He wants something that will give them more confidence that this will not slip.
Bidar agrees, the issue is that is if the creation of the task force is the way, or having a resolution that outlines what we want to do after they see the outline from public health. And that we require some regular updating of the council at whatever times the resolution requests and they can decide if that is to the council or CCEC, but they need an ongoing requirement. She agrees that they are not very connected with Public Health and Board of Public Health (Alder Lemmer is now there and she is the representative)
Alder Lemmer says that she is happy to advocate for what we need and act as a communications conduit and make sure PFAS is getting attention and prioritization in her capacity on the Board of Health.
Barbara Harrington-McKinney adds that the 28th the Board of Health will be doing the new alder orientation and that will give us an opportunity to expand and learn what they are involved in and PFAS should be incorporated in that conversation as well. She agrees we don’t need another group, but it should come back on the agenda. She says putting it on the CCEC agenda we need to make sure the information flows to all council members. She says that if they don’t designate a priority place for it so it doesn’t fall between the cracks.
Grant suggests they do it without prejudice in case they come back to this as a solution.
They place the committee on file.
