2. Public Trust: Fighting Fires

In this episode, we return to French Island, a community near La Crosse in Western Wisconsin, to learn more about how local drinking water became contaminated with PFAS.

For decades, firefighting foams made from PFAS were used at the local airport for routine training and to deal with emergency situations like plane crashes.

We visit Mike and Pennie Jorgenson, who, like other French Island residents, rely on regular shipments of drinking water from Culligan. Mike was a firefighter for 34 years and used to train with PFAS-containing firefighting foam at the local airport.

“We would dump barrels of whatever we could get our hands on that would burn and we would dump it on the ground and light it and we would use the foam to train and practice and learn how to put out fires with the foam,” said Mike. “We were under the premise the whole time that it was harmless, that we could wade through it and walk through it, and it would not hurt us.”

For French Island residents like Mike and Pennie, this is a deeply personal issue, but it’s not just personal solutions they’re after. French Island residents are engaging directly with government officials to advocate for new environmental health protections. One of the things they’re asking for is a statewide groundwater quality standard for PFAS.

Lee Donahue tells us how, in June, 2023, she traveled to Madison to testify before the state legislature about how PFAS contamination and the lack of a groundwater standard have impacted French Island, a community that is entirely dependent on private groundwater wells.

“For Campbell residents, Peshtigo residents, and so many others who live on private wells, this is a hardship and it’s a health crisis. And I cringed to count all of my friends who have fought or succumbed to cancer and many other untreatable health conditions,” said Donahue.

Public Trust is a collaboration between Midwest Environmental Advocates and Wisconsin Sea Grant

Midwest Environmental Advocates
Wisconsin Sea Grant
More about PFAS
Lee Donahue’s testimony audio clip courtesy of Wisconsin Eye