CEAC-2022-05-May

News
Wisconsin Judge: DNR Lacks Authority
to Regulate PFAS By Todd Richmond | Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin regulators lack the authority
to require businesses to clean up contamination from PFAS
chemicals and other toxins because legislators haven’t established
any restrictions on them, a judge ruled April 12.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren’s decision
means the state Department of Natural Resources must wait
for legislators to define them and impose limits in state law
or through an administrative rule. Both approaches can take
years.
“Today’s ruling threatens to remove the only meaningful
public health protection we have to address PFAS contamination
in Wisconsin,” said Tom Kilian, one of the founders of
Citizens for a Clean Wausau, a city that has been grappling
with PFAS-contaminated groundwater.
Bohren said he understands that the DNR must protect the
state from pollution, but that “there’s a way to do it” and
the agency right now seems to be operating “on a whim and
fancy.”
WMC lobbyist Scott Manley praised the decision.
“When the government ignores the rulemaking process, employers
are left in the dark as to what regulations they must
follow,” Manley said. “Businesses cannot afford to have that
kind of uncertainty, and we do not think it is too much to ask
for DNR to simply follow the law as written.”
Assistant Attorney General Gabe Johnson-Karp, who represented
the DNR in the case, said the ruling creates “significant
concern about regulatory uncertainty” and told the
judge he plans to appeal. Bohren agreed to stay his decision
until a June 6 hearing.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in 2021 by Wisconsin
Manufacturers and Commerce — the state’s largest business
group — and Leather Rich, Inc., an Oconomowoc dry cleaning
business.
According to the lawsuit, Leather Rich entered a DNR program
designed to help businesses that voluntarily report
pollution with clean up in 2019. The following year DNR
officials declared that businesses in the program need to
test for “emerging contaminants,” including PFAS, without
explaining which of the more than 4,000 PFAS compounds to
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