Damakant Jayshi
The Wausau Water Works Commission on Tuesday approved yet another extension for a pilot study on PFAS removal but with a net cap of $15,000 for the city’s utility.
This is the second extension for the continuation of the pilot study, approved despite the city acting on the study’s report on installing a filtration system for the delayed new water treatment plant that, according to the City of Wausau officials, is likely to be operational next month.
In June, the commission approved adopting granular activated carbon, or GAC, technology in the city’s filtration system in response to PFAS discovered in all six of the city’s drinking water wells. Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, PFAS, are also known has “forever chemicals” that contaminate water.
The cap of $15,000 was proposed by Commissioner John Robinson, who has repeatedly questioned the rationale for the continuation of the pilot study. He said gathering more information was great, but the commission has to be mindful of how much it will cost the taxpayers.
Robinson later said the cap is for the Department of Public Works and Utilities only and if the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wants the study to continue, the state agency will have to fund it.
Both the consultants conducting the study and the Public Works Director, Eric Lindman, have said the extensions are necessary to collect data. In his Sept. 6 memo to the commission, Lindman said the study is the “most accurate way to determine life cycle costs for PFAS treatment.” He said the information would be provided to the DNR to determine the frequency of testing for PFAS.
However, Donohue & Associates, the consultants who are partnering with another consulting firm, Becher-Hoppe, on the PFAS removal design and bidding, and Lindman differed on how long the study was required. While Donohue representatives asked on Tuesday for the extension until the middle of this month, the DPW director again asked for the continuation “as long as possible.”
Last month, while pushing for “at least” a month-long extension, Lindman justified the request by saying the extended time would allow the utility to look for alternate sources of funding.
The DPW director has opposed any attempts to discontinue the pilot study. In his memo to the commission last month, he wrote that “discontinuing the pilot study to save a few thousand dollars is NOT a sound engineering decision.” For Tuesday’s meeting, he wrote in another memo that the discontinuing the pilot study now “would be irresponsible and would throw away some very critical data for determining operational costs.”
Meanwhile, the scope of work done by another consulting firm, Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions, Inc., was reduced. The firm has been providing consulting services related to PFAS. Under the revised scope of the work, the budget is $49,013. The original total budget was $83,343.
When Commissioner Jim Force asked Lindman how much the city has spent so far, the director couldn’t give him the figures. Earlier, Force asked the staff to provide the commission with a snapshot of all the current projects and those likely to be considered and the estimated costs for them.
Lindman and other senior staff working on drinking water and wastewater management have also continued to express concern over the shortage of staff due to lack of pay raises and a pay disparity with other cities. Lindman said that the staff shortage has impacted the utility’s work.
In a separate memo, Lindman reminded the commission that over the past year, “recruitment/retention and staffing issues have been on the agenda for 10 of those months for discussion by the commission.”
Damakant Jayshi can be reached at [email protected]. Contact Wausau Pilot & Review’s editor and publisher, Shereen Siewert, at [email protected]. Follow Wausau Pilot on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/wausaupilot.
