The manufacturer of a firefighting foam that contaminated the water supply in northeastern Wisconsin with PFAS chemicals for decades agreed to a $10 million settlement with the state, the governor and attorney general announced on Thursday.
The settlement comes as residents, communities, regulators and environmental activists across the country are struggling with how to address contamination from PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers hailed the settlement with Tyco Fire Products as a “historic and important milestone” in the fight for clean water. The lawsuit filed in 2022 alleged that Tyco, a subsidiary of Johnson Controls, had contaminated the area around a firefighting training center since the 1960s and did not do enough to address it.
“Today’s a key step toward making sure polluters are held accountable, take responsibility for their actions, and ensure Wisconsinites don’t have to foot the bill for cleaning up the messes that others made,” Evers said in a statement announcing the deal.
But residents of the affected city of Marinette were hoping for more.
“The word of the day is underwhelming from our perspective,” said Doug Oitzinger, a former mayor of Marinette and current president of the advocacy group Save Our Water. “The dollar amount disappointed us. Ten million is kind of a drop in the bucket.”
Tyco ended outdoor training sessions with the foam containing PFAS chemicals in 2017. Also that year, the company first started providing bottled water and water purification systems to affected residents. The company says it has spent more than $100 million addressing the contamination.
Tyco said in a statement Thursday that it was pleased to have reached the deal, saying it “reflects the extensive work Tyco has undertaken” to address PFAS pollution.
“We’ve been part of the Marinette community for over 100 years and the spirit of doing what is best for our neighbors and the environment will continue to be our priority,” the company said.
PFAS are often referred to as forever chemicals because they resist breaking down, whether in well water or the environment. In the human body, they accumulate in the liver, kidneys and blood. Research has linked them to an increased risk of certain cancers and developmental delays in children.
The chemicals were developed as coatings to protect consumer goods from stains, water and corrosion. Nonstick cookware, carpets, outdoor gear and food packaging are among items that contain the chemicals. They also are an ingredient in firefighting foams.
Government estimates suggest that up to half of all U.S. households have some level of PFAS in their water — whether it comes from a private well or a tap. It is a widespread problem in Wisconsin and spawned numerous lawsuits.
Under the terms of the settlement announced Thursday, Wisconsin will put the $10 million from Tyco into a trust fund earmarked for PFAS cleanup. Tyco also agreed to continue to provide for replacement wells to provide clean drinking water to affected residents, conduct required monitoring and reporting, and implement further measures for the long-term remediation of the area.
The lawsuit, filed by Democratic Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, alleged that the company violated state law when it failed to notify regulators about a PFAS discharge and did not investigate or remediate the contamination around the Fire Technology Center in Marinette, a city of about 11,000 people that borders Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Tyco officials said at the time the lawsuit was filed that the company has invested “considerable resources” on investigating and remediating PFAS pollution from the Marinette firefighting training facility, including offering bottled water and in-home filtration systems to affected residents as well as building a groundwater pollution extraction system.
A second lawsuit filed by the state against Tyco and more than a dozen other companies over PFAS contamination in Wisconsin remains active.
The settlement announced Thursday will take effect if it’s approved by the judge overseeing the case.
Oitzinger, the former Marinette mayor, said Tyco was getting off too easy.
“Legally you may have gotten off of some hooks, but morally you’re not there,” he said. “You’re not there by a long shot.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Strong winds whipped around Doug Bartek, a fifth-generation farmer, as he headed into a grain bin to shovel soybeans onto a conveyor chute. The 60-year-old was anxious at the onset of the spring planting season, rattling off the long list of issues affecting his family’s livelihood at their 2,000-acre farm near Wahoo, Nebraska.
The high cost of fuel, equipment and fertilizer — compounded by the Iran war — and also tariffs, perceived “price gouging” by suppliers, and low soybean prices driven by a global supply glut. All of it weighs on Bartek, who is chairman of the Nebraska Soybean Association.
“Our biggest struggles are our inputs, be it fertilizer, seed, chemical, parts,” Bartek said. “There has been so much drastic markup in all of these. And I just kind of feel like the farmer’s kind of painted in the corner.”
Bartek’s concerns are shared by many Midwest soybean producers. Costs, such as equipment, have crept up over time while soybean prices have stayed low. Tariffs levied by the Trump administration last year and the resulting monthslong trade war with China only made things worse, they say. Then the Iran war bottled up shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, restricting global fertilizer supplies and sending fertilizer prices sky high. A ceasefire deal announced April 7 raised hope that bottlenecks in the strait would abate, but the future of the agreement was uncertain.
“A lot of producers are pretty nervous going into this year,” said Justin Sherlock, a soybean farmer and president of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association. “It looks like we’re going to have another year of negative returns.”
Years of rising costs, low soybean prices
Soybeans, which are used for livestock feed, food and biofuels, are among the top U.S. agricultural exports. That hasn’t always been the case. Before the 1960s soybeans weren’t a major crop in the U.S, according to Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. It wasn’t until the 1990s that soybean production accelerated due to international demand — primarily from China — and soybeans and corn are now dominant in U.S. agriculture.
But U.S. soybean farmers, who typically also grow corn, have been facing financial issues for years even before the onset of the Iran war. Soybean prices have been persistently low in recent years. The global market has been awash in soybeans, driven in part by Brazil, which surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest soybean producer years ago.
“If we look at global soybean production over the past several years, it continues to set record after record, after record,” Hart said. “There’s been just large supplies globally, and that has led to depressed prices.”
Meanwhile, Midwest soybean farmers’ costs have risen. Overall farm production expenses, including seed and pesticide, have increased over time, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Operating costs for soybean production have stayed elevated since 2020 and are projected to increase again in 2026, according to the agency.
The cost of land also is a major issue for farmers, experts say. Midwest crop land values have increased. And most regional farmers rent some of their land, according to Joana Colussi, research assistant professor in the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University.
Soybeans from last year’s harvest are loaded into a truck at Doug Bartek’s farm near Wahoo, Neb., on April 6, 2026. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)
Bartek, who rents three-quarters of his land, said landowners are increasing rents, causing further financial strain.
“There’s a lot of what I call absentee landowners that have absolutely no idea what goes on on the farm,” he said. “All they know is their taxes went up and you get to make up the difference, some way, somehow.”
“They’re very concerned about negative margins driven by low prices and high cost,” said Paul Mitchell, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, of farmers. “There’s just a liquidity cash crunch for a lot of them and they’re just trying to figure out how to deal with everything.”
The number of farms in the U.S. has shrunk over time, and consolidation in farming is a long-term trend, though farmers’ financial pressures wrought by high input costs and low commodity prices have contributed, Hart said. Larger farms tend to be more competitive and depend on large, expensive machinery.
“The financial reserves need(ed) on a farm are much greater than they used to be,” Hart said. “We’re a bit more sensitive to the financial conditions these days because so much capital is being utilized within the farm business.”
Tariffs, trade war have lasting impacts
Market forces aren’t the only issue weighing on farmers. Sweeping tariffs levied by President Donald Trump in April 2025 exacerbated a trade war with China, the top buyer of U.S. soybeans. China responded with retaliatory tariffs and effectively boycotted U.S. soybeans, cutting off a major export market for Midwest farmers and driving the price of soybeans even lower.
“When that was announced and soybean prices basically collapsed, if you could afford to hold on to your beans and wait for better times, you were OK,” said Mike Cerny, a soybean and winter wheat corn farmer in Sharon, Wisconsin. “If you had a mortgage due or payments due or cash flow needs and you had to sell at that point, you were taking it pretty rough.”
The U.S. and China eventually reached a deal in late 2025. Beijing committed to buying 12 million metric tons of soybeans by January and at least 25 million metric tons annually for the next three years. China has since met its initial soybean purchase goal, and the Trump administration also rolled out a $12 billion temporary aid package in December to boost farmers affected by the trade war.
But the damage is already done, experts and farmers say. While China’s renewed purchases and the federal payments are helping, it’s not enough to recover farmers’ losses. Even after federal assistance, farmers still lost almost $75 per harvested acre of soybeans in the 2025 crop, according to the American Soybean Association. And the trade war further pushed China toward competing soybean exporters, such as Brazil — accelerating a trend of declining U.S. soybean exports to China.
“When China decided to stop purchasing, we couldn’t find enough other markets to replace those sales,” Hart said. “We’re still feeling the impacts today. When you look at where soybean exports are today versus where we would normally expect them to be, we’re still running anywhere from 15% to 20% behind normal.”
Joseph Glauber, former chief economist at the Department of Agriculture between 2008 and 2014, said global competitors to U.S. soybean farmers gained from the trade war.
“When China has put on tariffs against the U.S. they’ve tended to buy them from Brazil or Argentina, largely Brazil,” Glauber added. “We’re not nearly as dominant in the world as we used to be in terms of the global export market for soybeans.”
Iran war drove up fuel, fertilizer costs
After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, a severe slowdown in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz sent the price of oil soaring. The shipping disruption also largely stopped the export of nitrogen fertilizers manufactured in the Persian Gulf and limited access to key fertilizer ingredients. The price of urea, the most widely traded nitrogen fertilizer, skyrocketed.
Soybeans don’t require nitrogen fertilizer, but it’s vital for corn, and most soybean farmers also grow corn. About half the global supply of urea comes from the Middle East, and Qatar and Saudi Arabia are two of the top sources of U.S. fertilizer imports, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The U.S. and Iran last week agreed to a two-week ceasefire that included reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but traffic remained slowed amid disagreements over Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and the price of urea remains elevated.
Many Midwest farmers bought their fertilizer well in advance of the spring planting season. But some farmers who didn’t buy early face elevated prices. Dave Walton, a corn, soybean and hay farmer in Iowa and vice president of the American Soybean Association, said in March that some of his neighbors didn’t have cash on hand last fall to buy fertilizer and were struggling to budget for fertilizer due to high prices.
The war also caused gasoline and diesel prices to surge, causing further headaches for farmers. Oil prices dropped following the ceasefire announcement, but the war and the closure of the strait will have lasting impacts on farmers, said Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, an investment research company. Facilities in the Middle East that are critical for exporting chemicals, oil and other commodities were damaged or destroyed during the war, and it will take time for supply chains to recover, he said.
“Facilities have been hit, like liquid natural gas plants,” Goldstein added. “You are also looking at a big supply crunch in commodity chemicals, which are the inputs for crop chemicals.”
“We burn a lot of diesel fuel,” said Chris Gould, a corn and soybean farmer in Maple Park, Illinois. “It’s hard to say if I’m gonna come out ahead or behind on this whole deal. But I suspect I’m gonna come out behind.”
Concerns about the future
Farmers’ financial problems are showing up in some measures. Farm bankruptcies, while still relatively low, continued to climb in 2025, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. In a survey of 400 farmers conducted by researchers at the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture in late March, almost half said their farm operation is financially worse off than it was a year ago.
Goldstein, the Morningstar analyst, said farmers’ high costs and low revenues contributed to the spike in bankruptcies between 2024 and 2025. If costs rise faster than crop prices going forward, he added, that “would strain farmers again and likely lead to more bankruptcies.”
After 43 years of farming, Bartek said the smell of fresh dirt still gets him excited for spring planting. But he’s also heard of farmer suicides, bankruptcies and “retirement sales” where farmers are forced to auction off their operations due to financial problems. Bartek compares farmers to gamblers who put “millions of dollars in the dirt” hoping for returns.
At times, Bartek doubts his own decision to go into farming. He’s also worried about his son, who purchased a farm a few years ago.
Bartek wonders: “Did I do the right thing helping him get into farming?”
This story is a collaboration between Lee Enterprises and The Associated Press.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The board that runs the Universities of Wisconsin voted unanimously Tuesday to fire the system’s president, drawing the ire of Republican lawmakers who called it a “partisan hatchet job.”
Jay Rothman had refused an offer from the board of regents to quietly resign, saying it never gave a clear reason why he should. Rothman has led the system that oversees the state’s four-year universities, including the flagship Madison campus, for nearly four years.
Rothman has had to tread carefully dealing with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a board of regents where all current members were appointed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. When Rothman was hired, the board also had a majority of Evers appointees.
Asked Monday about the move to oust Rothman, Evers didn’t take a side. “It’s their call,” he said of the board.
But Republican lawmakers were furious and threatened to fire regents who have yet to be confirmed by the state Senate.
“Make no mistake about it, the firing of UW President Rothman is a blatant partisan hatchet job,” Republican Senate President Patrick Testing said in a statement.
He said Rothman was fired for “not being liberal enough.”
“His only crime was his willingness to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to get things done,” Testin said.
The vote to fire Rothman came just five days after The Associated Press first reported that the regents asked Rothman to either resign or be fired. Rothman said in two letters to the regents that he would not leave voluntarily without knowing what he did wrong.
Regent President Amy Bogost said in a statement Monday that the board has shared results of a performance review with Rothman, with “direct conversations and clear feedback regarding leadership expectations.” She said the system needs “a clear vision” but did not elaborate on the review’s findings.
She repeated the statement Tuesday following a roughly 30-minute closed session regents meeting. No other regents spoke before the vote to fire Rothman, effective immediately.
Rothman said in an earlier statement Tuesday that regents repeatedly declined to cite a specific reason for finding no confidence in his leadership. No one ever indicated to him that an evaluation could lead to termination, he said, adding that Bogost called his review “overwhelmingly positive.”
“It is disappointing that the first I heard any sort of defense of their position was when they communicated with the media,” Rothman said. “I am left to conclude that, at best, this reflects an after-the-fact rationalization of a decision that was previously made.”
Rothman declined to comment after the vote.
The state Senate’s committee that oversees higher education scheduled a hearing for Thursday for 10 regents whose appointments by Evers have yet to be confirmed. Testin called for the Senate to reject all 10, which would mean they could no longer serve as regents.
However, the Senate is not scheduled to be in session again this year.
Rothman has served as president of the 165,000-student, multicampus system since June 2022. The former chair and CEO of the Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner law firm, Rothman had no prior experience administering higher education.
He has spent his tenure lobbying Republican legislators to increase state aid for the system in the face of federal cuts, navigating free speech issues surrounding pro-Palestinian protests, and grappling with declining enrollment that has forced eight branch campuses to close. Overall enrollment across the system has remained steady under his leadership.
Rothman brokered a deal with Republicans in 2023 that called for freezing diversity hires and creating a position at UW-Madison focused on conservative thought in exchange for the Legislature releasing money for UW employee raises and tens of millions of dollars for construction projects across the system.
The regents initially rejected the deal only to approve it in a second vote held just days later. Evers said at the time the deal left him disappointed and frustrated.
The fight over Rothman’s future comes as the flagship Madison campus is losing its chancellor. Jennifer Mnookin is leaving in May at the end of the current academic year to take the job as president of Columbia University.
Rothman makes $600,943 annually as UW president. He can be fired for no stated reason and he has no appeal rights, said Wisconsin employment law attorney Tamara Packard, who reviewed Rothman’s contract at the AP’s request.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque was detained by federal immigration agents, drawing accusations Thursday from local officials and religious leaders that the arrest was motivated by his criticism of Israel.
Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian-born legal permanent resident of the United States, was taken into custody by nearly a dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who surrounded his car on Monday in Milwaukee after he left his home, according to the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.
Supporters called Thursday for his immediate release. His attorneys said he was detained on the grounds that he is a foreign policy threat, a claim they say has no merit.
Instead, they believe Sarsour, 53, was targeted for speaking out against Israel and for a conviction as a minor by Israeli military courts, which have faced scrutiny over allegations of limited due process and high conviction rates of Palestinians. Israel rejects those claims. The offenses included allegedly throwing rocks at Israeli officers, according to attorney Munjed Ahmad.
“Our government should not be doing the bidding of a foreign government,” Ahmad said of Israel. “There’s no question in my mind is that this is to stifle the discourse on the Palestinian narrative.”
Attorneys said Sarsour, born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has no criminal record in the U.S., where he has lived for more than 30 years. They said the U.S. government has known about Sarsour’s conviction in Israel since he came to the U.S. in 1993.
Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. (Courtesy of Islamic Society of Milwaukee)
An email message left Thursday for ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned.
Sarsour’s attorneys have likened the case to that of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student activist who faces deportation because the federal government said he was a foreign policy threat.
Sarsour has been the board president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest Islamic organization in the state, for five years. His attorneys say he holds a green card and lives just outside Milwaukee. His wife and four adult children are U.S. citizens.
At a crowded news conference, boisterous supporters chanted to free Sarsour, recounting his advocacy for those in need. Several recalled Sarsour’s stories about his childhood, including allegations of inhumane treatment while being detained by Israelis.
“He was targeted because of one thing, because he dared stand up to the Israeli army,” Othman Atta, one of Sarsour’s attorneys, told the crowd. “And he was not a U.S. citizen.”
A diverse group of religious leaders in a attendance called Sarsour a valuable community member.
“This appears to be just the latest example of how this administration seeks to silence opposition and intimidate those who speak and act differently,” said the Rev. Paul D. Erickson, bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Sarsour’s arrest also prompted outcry from elected officials, including Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who called it “an outrage.”
“He is a legal permanent resident. There is no substantive evidence he has done anything wrong,” Johnson said Thursday in a post on X. “This is another example of overreach and harm from the U.S. immigration authorities.”
Sarsour is being held at a county jail in Indiana. His attorneys have filed a petition seeking his release.
“He is ready to fight tooth and nail to make sure that he’s not drug through the mud,” Ahmad said. “He wants to stay in this country.”
The president of the 25-campus Universities of Wisconsin said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday that he’s been told to either resign or be fired, but has been given no reason and won’t step aside from the 165,000-student system.
Jay Rothman, president of the university system since 2022, said in the letter addressed to the head of the Board of Regents dated March 26 that he’s been given no reason why regents want him to leave.
Rothman said he’s been told that his options are to resign or retire and that if he doesn’t then the board “was prepared to terminate my employment despite all that has been accomplished.”
The Board of Regents held a closed emergency meeting on Wednesday night to discuss personnel matters.
“The Board is responsible for the leadership of the Universities of Wisconsin and is having discussions about its future,” Amy Bogost, board president, said in a statement to AP. “We don’t comment on personnel matters.”
Rothman declined to comment when reached via email on Thursday.
“I believe my letter speaks for itself,” he said.
Rothman’s tenure has been marked by his efforts to increase state funding amid federal cuts, debates over free speech on campus amid pro-Palestinian protests and declining enrollment leading to eight branch campus closures.
“Since to date you have not provided any substantive reason or reasons for the Board’s finding of no confidence in my leadership, I am not prepared, as a matter of principle, to submit my resignation,” Rothman said in the letter addressed to Bogost.
Rothman notes in the letter that “among so many other things,” the university will need to replace the chancellor of the flagship Madison campus this year. Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin is leaving to take the job as president of Columbia University.
“I do not believe my resignation at this time is in the best interests of either the Universities of Wisconsin or the state of Wisconsin,” Rothman said.
Rothman said in the letter that he has devoted his “heart and soul to the mission of the Universities of Wisconsin” and that he was surprised when told “an unidentified majority of the Board of Regents had lost confidence” in his leadership.
“When I asked you to articulate reasons for the Board’s conclusion and apparent lack of confidence in me, you merely noted that each Regent has his or her own perspective on the matter,” Rothman wrote. “You did not provide any tangible reasons for the Board’s determination.”
Rothman, the former chair and CEO of the Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner law firm, was chosen as UW president in 2022. He had no prior experience administering higher education.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
A jury convicted a Wisconsin man of election fraud and identity theft for requesting the ballots of Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Democratic Racine Mayor Cory Mason without their consent.
Jurors in Racine County on Tuesday found Harry Wait guilty of two misdemeanor election fraud charges and one felony identity theft charge following a two-day trial. He was acquitted of a second count of identity theft.
Wait leads a group that makes false election claims, including that Wisconsin’s elections are riddled with fraud and that President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 by about 21,000 votes.
Wait admitted in 2022 that he requested Vos’ and Mason’s ballots to try to prove that the state’s voter registration system is vulnerable to fraud. Wait told The Associated Press at the time that he wasn’t surprised he was charged.
“You got to expect to pay some costs sometimes when you are trying to work for the public good,” he said.
His efforts drew praise from Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, who called Wait a “white hat hacker.”
After the verdict, Wait told WTMJ that he “would do it again.”
“I tested the system and the system failed,” he said.
A sentencing date has not been set. Wait’s attorney Joe Bugni did not respond to an email Wednesday asking whether he would appeal.
Wait, 71, faces up to six years in prison on the felony conviction and up to a year in jail on each of the misdemeanor convictions.
His conviction comes after a jury in 2024 found a former Milwaukee election official guilty of misconduct in office after she obtained three military absentee ballots using fake names and Social Security numbers in 2022. Like Wait, Kimberly Zapata argued that she was trying to expose vulnerabilities in the state’s election system.
Zapata was fined $3,000 and sentenced to one year probation.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The Wisconsin Legislature sent a $133 million plan to combat contamination from so-called forever chemicals to Gov. Tony Evers for his approval Tuesday, promising an end to years of squabbling between the Democratic governor and Republican lawmakers over the issue.
Evers said immediately after the Senate approved the bills Tuesday afternoon that he would sign them into law. The rare bipartisan compromise offers at least some hope for the scores of Wisconsin villages, towns and cities grappling with PFAS pollution in their groundwater.
“Beautiful. This has been a long time coming,” Campbell Town Supervisor Lee Donahue said of the Senate votes. Residents of the town of 4,300 have been drinking bottled water since state health officials warned them in 2021 that more than 500 wells were contaminated. Donahue said state dollars would help the town transition from private wells to a municipal water system treated for PFAS.
“This is definitely a day for celebration,” she said.
Communities across the U.S. struggling with PFAS
PFAS — short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are manmade chemicals that don’t easily break down in nature. They’re found in a wide range of products, including cookware and stain-resistant clothing, and previously were often used in aviation fire-suppression foam. The chemicals have been linked to health problems, including low birth weight, cancer and liver disease, and have been shown to make vaccines less effective.
Communities located near industrial sites and military bases nationwide are grappling with PFAS contamination. Government estimates suggest as much as half of U.S. households have some level of PFAS in their water — whether it comes from a private well or a tap. While federal officials have put strict limits on water provided by utilities, those rules don’t apply to the roughly 40 million people in the U.S. who rely on private drinking water wells.
Municipalities across Wisconsin are struggling with PFAS contamination in groundwater, including Marinette, Madison, Peshtigo, Wausau, the town of Stella and Campbell. The waters of Green Bay also are contaminated.
In Stella, for example, private wells were badly contaminated by PFAS-laden fertilizer spread on farm fields. The state has had limited resources to help, struggling to provide widespread free testing, and officials have offered only a limited grant program for well replacements.
‘Some forward movement’
Tom LaDue, a Stella resident, lives on the shores of a highly contaminated lake. He said the Senate signing off on the bills was a rare bit of good news for his town of 670 people. Testing has shown very little PFAS in his private well, but LaDue sits on a town committee that tracks PFAS developments and he knows dozens of people are living on bottled water. He said he hopes the town will get enough money to at least test private wells for pollution.
“We’ve been waiting for it for a long time,” he said of releasing the money. “We’ll be letting everyone in the town know this has passed and we’ll finally see, hopefully, some forward movement in our small town.”
Evers and Republicans have been at odds for years over how best to address the pollution. The 2023-25 state budget created a $125 million trust fund to combat PFAS contamination, but the two camps haven’t been able to agree on how to spend it.
Two years ago the governor vetoed a GOP bill that would have spent the money on grants for municipalities, landowners and waste disposal facilities to test for PFAS in water treatment plants and wells. But Evers said the bill limited state regulators’ authority to hold polluters liable, and environmental groups urged him to kill the proposal.
Compromise bills unlock tens of millions of dollars
The fund has grown to $133.4 million during the stalemate, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
The chief sponsors of that original bill, Republican Sen. Eric Wimberger and Rep. Jeff Mursau, released two new proposals in January after discussions with the state Department of Natural Resources, an Evers Cabinet agency.
The first bill would spend $132.2 million from the PFAS trust fund for community grants, well replacements, airports and industrial properties and $1.3 million from the state’s general fund to cover 10 new state Department of Natural Resources positions to administer the spending.
The second proposal establishes a list of entities that would be exempt from liability for contamination, similar to the bill Evers vetoed in 2024. Included on the list are people who spread PFAS while in compliance with permits that did not address PFAS; landowners whose property was contaminated pursuant to a permit; owners of contaminated industrial property who didn’t cause the pollution; and fire departments that used PFAS in their foam. Businesses that own or operate facilities that currently or have used PFAS or have ever spread industrial waste could be held liable, however.
Bills generate overwhelming support
The Assembly passed both pieces of legislation unanimously on the last day of its regular two-year session in February. The Senate passed the bills overwhelmingly, approving one bill 33-0 and the other on a voice vote with almost no discussion.
“I’m incredibly proud we were able to work across the aisle to get this done — and get it done right,” Evers said in a statement.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
A conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice first elected in 2007 announced Monday that she will not seek a third 10-year term next year, giving liberals another chance to expand their majority as cases affecting redistricting, union rights, school funding and other hot button issues await.
Justice Annette Ziegler, 62, becomes the second conservative justice in as many years to decide against seeking reelection after liberals took majority control of Wisconsin’s highest court in 2023. Liberals held onto their majority last year in a race that broke national spending records and saw billionaire Elon Musk traveling to the state to hand out $1 million checks to conservative voters.
There’s another election on April 7 for the open seat caused by conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley’s decision not to run for reelection. The liberal candidate, Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, has outraised her conservative opponent, fellow Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, allowing her to spend more on television ads in what so far has been a low-profile race given that the court’s majority is not on the line.
Liberals are seeking to win their fourth Supreme Court race in a row dating back to 2020 and solidify their hold on the court.
Ziegler’s decision to step down means there will be another open race next year. If liberals win this year, their majority would increase to 5-2, and in 2027 they could grow it to 6-1. If the conservative candidate wins this year, the liberal majority would remain 4-3, and next year the best conservatives could do would be to keep it at 4-3.
Ziegler consistently sided with fellow conservatives justices, including in 2020 when the court fell one vote short of overturning President Donald Trump’s election loss that year. Ziegler was in the minority after a conservative swing justice sided with liberals.
Liberals have struck down a state abortion ban law and ordered new legislative maps since taking control of the court, fueling Democrats’ hopes of capturing a majority this November.
Ziegler, who was chief justice between 2021 and 2025, previously served as a circuit court judge in Washington County for 10 years.
“Now is the right time for me to step away to spend more time with my husband, kids and grandkids,” she said in a statement.
“I am incredibly proud that in all my elections I had support from a broad spectrum of legal, civic, law enforcement and political leaders — both Democrats and Republicans — who believed in my commitment to fairness, ethics and the rule of law,” Ziegler said.
The election to replace Ziegler is April 6, 2027.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
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