DNR officials to return to Stella for PFAS discussion

Eight months after Town of Stella residents first learned that dangerous levels of PFAS (per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances) had been detected in water samples taken from local wells, Department of Natural Resources officials are set to return to the small eastern Oneida County community to provide an update on the ongoing PFAS contamination investigation.

According to a notice posted on the Town of Stella website, a meeting with DNR officials is scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15 at the town hall.

“The Town of Stella, Oneida County, invited Department of Natural Resources staff to provide updates about work to protect public health from PFAS contamination in the Town of Stella,” according to a notice posted on the DNR webpage devoted to the Stella contamination issue. “The DNR staff will discuss possible long-term water solutions for households that are PFAS-impacted, and state resources community members may be eligible to receive to address it. After the formal meeting, attendees may discuss their unique circumstances with DNR staff. Local, licensed drinking water well and treatment professionals have also been invited to attend and may be available to connect with community members individually. This meeting will be held fully in-person with no option for attending virtually. If unable to attend, questions may be submitted to [email protected] or by calling 888-626-0605.”

This will be the third time DNR representatives have met with Stella residents in the last year related to the PFAS issue. Agency officials first visited Stella on Dec. 13, 2022 to provide initial information on the contamination, which was discovered by the DNR as part of an ongoing statewide testing project. 

DNR officials returned to Stella on Jan. 9, 2023 for a follow-up meeting.

Since that time, additional, broader PFAS testing has taken place.

Some of the results from Stella, which is located approximately 11 miles from Rhinelander, represent some of the highest PFAS readings found in the state to date, according to the DNR. One woman who spoke during the January meeting with DNR officials said her next door neighbor’s well showed PFAS contamination at more than 40,000 ppt (parts per trillion). 

For context, the recommended safe level is 20 ppt.

PFAS are a group of human-made chemicals used for decades in numerous products, including non-stick cookware, fast food wrappers, stain-resistant sprays and certain types of firefighting foam. These contaminants have made their way into the environment through accidental spills of PFAS-containing materials, discharges of PFAS-containing wastewater to treatment plants and certain types of firefighting foams, according to the DNR. 

These chemicals are known to accumulate in the human body, posing several risks to human health including certain cancers, liver damage and decreased fertility. 

“Ultimately, we’re trying to figure out some kind of long-term solution here,” Chris Saari, the DNR’s Northern Region Program Manager for the Remediation and Redevelopment Program, told the River News in April.

“We’re trying to find the edges of it and in a reasonable fashion figure out how widespread it is.”

DNR officials have stressed that it may take years, if ever, to determine what caused the contamination in Stella

“(PFAS) marches to the beat of its own drummer in the environment,” DNR remediation and redevelopment program manager Christine Sieger stated during a late January media briefing on the Stella PFAS investigation. “It doesn’t behave like other things in the environment and so investigation into PFAS... like any other contaminant, can take years. In some cases we’re not going to find a responsible party. We’re going to look and we might find that we can’t tell where it’s coming from. We could find that there are multiple sources responsible. It’s an iterative process and it’s one that takes time.”

One potential source of the contamination mentioned by Stella residents during the January meeting was the use of sludge on agricultural fields in the town.

On Feb. 7, in response to an inquiry from the River News, the DNR confirmed the City of Rhinelander and the Ahlstrom-Munksjo paper mill spread sludge in Stella from the late 1990s to 2011, in the case of the city, and 2021 in the case of the mill.

“We can confirm that both sewage sludge (also known as biosolids) from the Rhinelander Wastewater Treatment Facility and Paper Mill Sludge from the Ahlstrom-Munksjo Specialty Solutions Facility (also known as Expera Specialty Solutions) was spread in the Town of Stella,” DNR field operations manager Tim Ryan said in response to a request from the newspaper for information on the agency’s documentation of the use of sludge in Stella. “The City of Rhinelander has spread biosolids on 8 different sites in the Town of Stella between 1997 and 2011. Ahlstrom Munksjo (or previous owners) have spread paper mill sludge on 63 different sites in the Town of Stella between 1996 and 2021.”

In disclosing the information on the past use of sludge in Stella, the agency was careful to note it cannot definitively say the spreading of sludge caused the contamination.

“The Department does not have PFAS data for the paper mill sludge or sewage sludge/biosolids that was land applied,” Ryan said. “The Department is in the process of identifying potential sources.”

In response to the report, Addie Teeters, head of marketing communications & public affairs for Ahlstrom Munksjo, stressed that the company received permits from the DNR for its “landspreading activities.”

“Since Ahlstrom acquired the Rhinelander mill in 2018, it has continued participating in a regulated biosolids landspreading program administered by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources,” Teeters wrote in response to an email request for comment on the DNR report. “As part of that program, we have received and operate pursuant to permits issued by the Department. We maintain records which are provided to the Department relating to our ongoing landspreading activities.”

“Ahlstrom has led the marketplace in developing PFAS-free technology for more than a decade and utilizes our FluoroFree® technology at the Rhinelander mill,” she added.

“At this time the City cannot validate what spreading the DNR may have authorized in the 1990s and early 2000’s,” city attorney Steve Sorenson wrote in response to a request for comment from the city regarding its past history of spreading sludge in Stella. “Since I have been with the City there has been no spreading of biosolids in the Town of Stella by the City,” he added. 

For more information on the Stella PFAS investigation, visit https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/PFAS/Stella.html.

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].