By Damakant Jayshi
A number of City Council members on Tuesday criticized the Wausau School District’s proposal to install artificial turf, amid growing concern over potential groundwater contamination.
Some alders said they were concerned and annoyed that the district dismissed their concerns over potential contamination from highly toxic PFAS at a time when the city is grappling with how to pay for removing such substances from residents’ drinking water. The discussion Tuesday was part of a review of the city’s agreement with the district for managing and maintaining a stormwater facility at Wausau East High School, 2607 N. 18th St.
Stormwater is rainwater or snow-turned-water that does not seep into soil because of impervious surface. Left unmanaged, such runoff water can pollute potable water or cause flooding. Stormwater facilities help maintain the flow of such runoff water and ensure quality of drinking water. City staff recommended approving the maintenance agreement.
In his memo to the Capital Improvements and Street Maintenance Committee on May 11, engineer Thomas Niksich wrote that the Wausau School District had proposed the redevelopment of an existing baseball field, an existing softball field and an existing multi use field at the Wausau East High School Campus and laying synthetic turf infields and a synthetic turf multi use field.
Alder Becky McElhaney said the city has already spent tens of millions of dollars in dealing with PFAS chemicals.
“Now we are going to allow somebody to put something in a school that may be another source of PFAS,” McElhaney said. “I don’t know what the city’s responsibility is, but if we don’t have it, we should have it, because it is our water – for everyone. We are responsible to people in our community to give them clean water, clean soil, clean schools.”
On Tuesday, the Wausau City Council voted to explore a lawsuit to identify polluters and recover costs for cleaning up the city’s drinking water.
McElhaney, who is also Common Council president, was responding to Alder Lisa Rasmussen’s assertion that the city lacks the authority to stop the school district from installing artificial turf at Wausau East and two other schools – Wausau West High School and John Muir Middle School.
McElhaney said no one is sure what the district plans to place into the field and if something goes wrong, it will be the city’s responsibility.
“I don’t want to clean up anybody else’s mess anymore and I know my residents are feeling the same way,” she said, adding that the city should do something if they find PFAS in the stormwater runoff. “We have given our concerns to the school district and they have ignored it,” the Dist. 6 alder said.
The item was pulled out of the consent agenda at the request of Alder Carol Lukens to allow for more discussion.
“I understand that this is for stormwater maintenance, but I still find that concerning and this is something that should be shared with the public,” the Dist. 1 alder said. “This is something we should all be aware of because we have the responsibility for drinking water.”
In June 2022, addressing the Wausau School Board in her capacity as a citizen, Lukens said one of the risks posed by artificial turf is that such material has been shown to contain micro plastic and PFAS contaminants, also known as forever chemicals due to their resistance to breaking down over time.
The drinking water wells in Wausau and nearby areas have been found to contain Per- and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) above the new threshold suggested by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS). Wausau then worked to adopt PFAS removal technology at its new drinking water plant to ensure residents’ water is clean and safe, at a cost of millions.
Alders Lou Larson, Gary Gisselman, Tom Kilian and Doug Diny also expressed concern about the potential of turf contaminating the groundwater in the city. Diny asked whether the city had any obligation to manage groundwater in sites with artificial turf.
Public Works Director Eric Lindman couldn’t specifically say what role artificial turfs played in such a scenario.
Larson, who chairs the CISM Committee, said he didn’t know “why the school board went this route when the natural turf worked fine for all these years.”
Mayor to explore several options, including taking with WSD and state
Mayor Katie Rosenberg responded to concerns expressed by alders and said she would discuss the matter with Public Works Director Lindman and City Attorney Anne Jacobson, then decide the next course of action.
Among the options, the mayor added, was discussing the matter with the school district and relaying the city’s concerns, formalizing a resolution opposing this and letting the district know about it, or talking to the state government. Rosenberg said they know the state will regulate surface water at some point.
McElhaney agreed with that approach. “We have no idea what they (school district) are going to put in. I think there has to be some collaboration. We just can’t have any more PFAS into our soil.”
