11/06/2019- Marinette County’s Development Committee is side-stepping a request to take an official stance on a piece of proposed legislation that deals with a local and statewide contamination crisis. The Committee considered a resolution to support Senate Bill 302, known as the CLEAR Act, which requires the DNR to establish and enforce various standards for PFAS substances. Supervisor Bob Holley says this is something the agency is already working on and while he’s in favor of supporting general action relating to PFAS remediation, he doesn’t want the County taking a side politically.
“I cannot support it when it says ‘Senate Bill 302’ or any other bill. It can be Republican bill, Democratic bill, it can be any bill But, as a County Board, we should not be supporting bills, we should be supporting concepts. The concept of clean water is great- I agree 100%. But we’re not here to do that, so I will not support this resolution.”
Residents who spoke out during public comment see it differently. Andi Rich of Marinette says it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with coming up with a solution that protects people and the environment.
“For five months we’ve been begging our local representatives, John Nygren and Jeff Mursau, to get involved, and we’ve heard crickets. Us coming to you and asking you to help us express the support of pushing this along so we can get enforceable limits is nothing to do partisan politics. It’s the simple fact that we need them at the table so they can come to an agreement because right now, they’re not at that table. They’re not even interested in working on something that both parties can agree to.”
A motion to amend the resolution to eliminate text specifically referring to SB 302 and replace it to reflect that the county supports general action requiring the DNR create enforceable PFAS standards was approved. That resolution now moves on to the full County Board for final approval.