Photo: Madison Well 15 at Reindahl Park
By Steve Verburg, Wisconsin State Journal
As citizen groups prepared to ask the Madison Water Utility Board on Tuesday for a more aggressive response to drinking water contamination possibly from Truax Air National Guard base, the utility announced it plans to test for at least twice as many toxic compounds as previously announced.
The testing would begin in February at Well 15 on East Washington Avenue, where several varieties of a toxic chemical called PFAS have been detected at levels below a disputed health advisory issued in 2016 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Additional testing is designed to warn the utility if PFAS levels rise.
Some residents are asking the utility to shut the well down, while others say a shutdown would mean the neighborhood would drink water from other municipal wells they say haven’t been tested adequately for PFAS.
Midwest Environmental Justice Organization in Madison called for testing at all city wells, for the city and Dane County to test two firefighting training areas near the Dane County Regional Airport, and for the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District to test sewer outflows from the air base as well as treated water and sludge it discharges into public waters and onto farm fields.
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