Stella to host PFAS meeting as court battle continues

Stella residents will have a chance to hear the latest on the town’s PFAS contamination from state and federal agencies, and from the UW-Madison researcher leading a newly funded health study, at an informational meeting Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the town hall.

Doors open at 5 p.m., and the meeting starts promptly at 5:30 p.m. According to the meeting notice, representatives of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Department of Health Services (DHS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will provide updates. Dr. Amy Schultz, an epidemiologist at UW-Madison, will also give an update on the study of Stella residents funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study will test blood levels along with water, soil, and food grown and eaten locally, the notice states.

Questions about the meeting can be emailed to Town Chair Casey Crump at chair@townofstella.com. A quorum of the Stella Town Board may attend, but no formal action will be taken, the notice states.

Schultz announced at the board’s Sept. 8 meeting that the NIH had awarded about $3.48 million over five years for the study, with just under $500,000 allocated in the first year.

The research has two main goals: identifying the sources and pathways of PFAS exposure in the community, including compounds not covered by routine government monitoring, and examining whether exposure affects how the body processes fats and lipids such as cholesterol.

Besides blood and optional urine samples, researchers plan to test household dust, indoor and outdoor air, garden soil and produce, deer meat and fish, and household drinking water. Residents age 6 and older will be eligible.

Schultz said last month she hoped to begin recruiting participants around December, with the goal of holding the first appointments before the end of the year. The study aims to enroll 450 participants, each of whom will be asked to complete the study twice, about two years apart.

Schultz is also forming a community advisory board of about six residents to help guide the research. Details on how to apply, as well as compensation for advisory board members and study participants, had not been finalized as of last month.

Residents learned nearly four years ago that some of the highest PFAS levels recorded in the country were in their rural township. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a large group of manmade chemicals used since the 1940s in products such as nonstick cookware, waterproof fabrics, food packaging and firefighting foam. They’re called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down naturally and can build up in the human body.

The contamination is also the subject of a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The plaintiffs, a group of Stella property owners, allege land-spreading of paper mill sludge, or fiber cake, from the Rhinelander mill, now owned by Ahlstrom and formerly known as Wausau Paper, caused the contamination. The plaintiffs have asked the court to certify the case as a class action. The defendants were scheduled to respond to the certification motion this month but the deadline has since been pushed back to mid-December.

Meanwhile, attorneys in the case are fighting over who should represent property owners whose land received fibercake from the mill. Plaintiffs are asking U.S. District Judge William Conley for permission to replace an 80-year-old man who moved away from the area with a 65-year-old man who continues to live in the town as the lead plaintiff for that group. According to court records, the 80-year-old man sold his home and adjoining farmland earlier this year. Plaintiffs’ attorneys say he left the Stella area and has consented to stepping aside. The 65-year-old man still owns about 200 acres in the land-application zone, and his well tested at 715 parts per trillion of PFOA and 42.2 ppt of PFOS, according to court filings. The federal limit for each is 4 ppt.

The defendants oppose the switch, arguing plaintiffs waited too long and that the change would waste two years of discovery. They also argue the older man’s property sale undercuts the lawsuit’s claim that PFAS contamination drove down property values. Plaintiffs counter that the defendants never compared those prices to what the property would have sold for without contamination. They also say the older man’s original well was never cleaned up but replaced with a deeper one. Plaintiffs asked the judge to either approve the substitution now or decide it alongside their pending motion for class certification.