Town of Campbell speaking out in Madison on funding to find drinking water without PFAS

Families on French Island recently got good news that test drilling has detected new, deeper sources of groundwater without PFAS, “forever chemicals.”

That word comes as state lawmakers consider bills to provide grants to help Wisconsin communities like the Town of Campbell test for PFAS.

At the monthly Campbell town board meeting on Tuesday, supervisor Lee Donahue asked other community leaders to speak out in favor of more funding.

“They must hear from you,” she said. “Otherwise, they are not gonna receive your input, and they’re not gonna act upon whichever way you lean toward these bills. I am only one voice in a very large crowd, among a hundred and 20 other municipalities that are affected by PFAS.”

In May, the La Crosse County Board approved $500,000 from this year’s budget to assist Campbell in drilling new wells and researching alternate sources of drinking water.

For the second consecutive week, Donahue is scheduled to speak at a committee hearing in Madison on a $125 million state fund to finance PFAS relief.

Last week, she testified against a funding plan “because there are several things in the bill that I feel are slanted toward large municipalities, and not folks like us that are on groundwater.”

Hundreds of families in Campbell have been supplied with bottled water for two years because of PFAS levels in well water. The chemicals have been traced to firefighting foam used for many years at the La Crosse Airport on French Island.