mHUB and Current team up to launch the Sustainable Water Tech Accelerator

Click here for full article.

mHUB and Current have launched an ambitious new accelerator program aimed at rapidly commercializing physical water technologies. This venture comes at a pressing moment for the industry: Aging infrastructure, increasing industrial water use, and tightening regulations are creating a true sense of urgency around technological innovation.

The Sustainable Water Tech Accelerator, formally announced this spring, is now actively recruiting early-stage companies developing physical products across the water and wastewater space. The six-month accelerator, backed by the NSF-funded Great Lakes ReNEW Engine, will select 8–10 startups to participate later this year.

Wisconsin Supreme Court delivers win for environmentalists in fight over ‘forever chemicals’

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered a victory for environmentalists on Tuesday in the fight over “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, issuing a ruling that advocates said will hold polluters accountable.

The liberal-controlled court ruled that state regulators can force landowners to clean up emerging pollutants such as PFAS before they are officially designated as hazardous substances.

The 5-2 ruling is a defeat for the state’s powerful group representing businesses and manufacturers, which had argued the state couldn’t enforce regulations on substances before they were officially designated as hazardous.

It is the latest development in a yearslong battle in Wisconsin and nationally involving regulators, environmentalists, politicians and businesses over how to deal with PFAS contamination.

The PFAS problem

Cities large and small across Wisconsin, from Madison to Marinette and La Crosse to Wausau, are grappling with PFAS contamination.

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of chemicals that have been around for decades and have now spread into the nation’s air, water and soil.

The chemicals helped eggs slide across nonstick frying pans, ensured that firefighting foam suffocates flames and helped clothes withstand the rain and keep people dry.

They resist breaking down, however, which means they stay around in the environment and have a hard time breaking down in the body. There is a wide range of health harms now associated with exposure to certain PFAS, including low birth weight, cancer and liver disease.

The Wisconsin case

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a case brought by the state’s largest business group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which sued the DNR in 2021 on behalf of Leather Rich, a dry cleaning business in Oconomowoc.

Leather Rich became aware of PFAS contamination in 2018 and was working on cleaning it up when the DNR posted a message online in 2019 saying it now considered PFAS chemicals a hazardous substance. The agency ordered the dry cleaner to test its groundwater for PFAS but didn’t tell the business which compounds it needed to test for or what levels would be considered dangerous.

Leather Rich argued the DNR can’t force businesses to test and clean up contamination from emerging pollutants like PFAS without first designating them as hazardous substances. That process can take years and requires approval from the Legislature. All that time, polluters could harm the environment and put people’s health and safety at risk with no obligation to begin cleanup, the DNR argued.

A Waukesha County judge and the state appeals court sided with Leather Rich.

The DNR appealed, saying the lower court’s ruling would neuter the state’s “spills law,” which was designed to confront pollution.

That law, enacted about 50 years ago, requires anyone who causes, possesses or controls a hazardous substance that’s been released into the environment to clean it up.

Click here for full article.

Michigan's newest PFAS threat: Contamination from household septic systems

Cadillac residents had been on edge for months about the discovery of toxic “forever chemicals” in dozens of private drinking water wells, when state officials recently delivered some unexpected news.

The most logical culprit, many had believed, was a local industrial park with a troubled history. After all, metal platers and automotive manufacturers had already polluted the park with volatile organic compounds and hexavalent chromium. Those same industries have been linked to PFAS contamination in other Michigan communities. And Cadillac’s first PFAS-positive well test had come from a home within the industrial park. 

But a state analysis of water from 70 neighboring wells told another story: Some residents, schools and businesses may have unwittingly tainted their own drinking water, through years of flushing common household products down the drain and into septic systems that allowed tainted sewage to quietly infiltrate the aquifer.

‘Forever chemicals’ in sludge used to fertilize farms can pose a health risk to people, EPA says

Chemicals found in sewage sludge that some farmers use to fertilize fields and pastures can pose a threat to human and animal health, the US Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.

Exposure to food from farms that use the sewage sludge can raise a person’s risk of developing cancer or other health conditions, it said. Under certain conditions, the human health risks from sludge used on farms are “several orders of magnitude” above what the EPA considers acceptable, the agency said.

While the EPA said Tuesday that the general food supply is not at risk, these “forever chemicals,” as they are sometimes called, can pose a threat to the health of people who drink a lot of milk or eat beef from farms that use the sludge.

The specific chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), belong to a larger class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds (PFAS) and are considered “forever chemicals” because they take such a long time to break down in the environment and in the human body.

News Archive

2025 News

2024 News

2023 News

2022 News

2021 News

2020 News

2019 News

2018 News

2017 News