Current Issues
Pentagon Relies on Antiquated, Dangerous Methods for Hazardous Waste Disposal
by Enid Sisskin, PhD, Director of Gulf Coast Environmental Defense. It's a shocking case of arrested development. In a nation that prides itself on high technology, our federal government is burning and detonating hazardous waste in the open air, using stone age...
Virginia Army Base is National Cancer Hotspot
The 7,000-acre Radford Army Ammunition Plant spans both sides of the New River. (Image from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) VIRGINIA – Researchers at Cancer Control and Population Health Research at the University of Virginia are warning that all...
PFAS in Fish a Risk to Wildlife, not just People
Following is CSWAB's testimony at the recent WDNR public hearing on proposed SURFACE WATER criteria for certain PFAS: My name is Laura Olah and I live in Merrimac, Wisconsin, in rural Sauk County, and I am here today on behalf of Citizens for Safe Water Around...
Wisconsin Watch: ‘Something has to be done’: Living along Madison’s Starkweather Creek, one of Wisconsin’s most polluted waterways.
By Isaac Wasserman / Wisconsin Watch October 7th, 2021 Melody Homesly, left, and Carnetta Galvin stand on a bridge that crosses Starkweather Creek near Galvin’s home of 16 years in the Darbo-Worthington neighborhood of Madison, Wis. Galvin says she was not initially...
Hundreds Call on EPA to Stop Open Air Burning of PFAS and other Toxic Chemicals
Today, more than 260 people – representing more than 100 environmental and social justice organizations from the U.S. and its territories – co-signed an open letter calling on U.S. EPA Administrator Michael Regan to end the dangerous practice of open air burning and...
Demilitarization of Military Flares as an Uncontrolled Source of PFAS
Pyrotechnic compositions of magnesium/Teflon/Viton (MTV) are widely used in military flares and for igniting the solid propellant of a rocket motor, and are comprised of as much as 45% PFAS. The demilitarization of excess, obsolete, or unserviceable flares and other...
EPA Must Protect Public Health by Regulating PFAS as a Class
By Dr. Linda Birnbaum, Dr. Betsy Southerland and Robert Sussman Originally published in THE HILL on July 30, 2021 The high-stakes debate is raging over a broad class of toxic chemicals that contaminate drinking water consumed by tens of millions of people. These...
WDNR Adjusts Groundwater Testing for Explosives at Badger Ammo
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) has asked the U.S. Army at Badger Army Ammunition Plant to reinstate annual testing of certain monitoring wells at the northeastern edge of a groundwater contaminant plume in the Town of Merrimac. The Central Plume...
DNR Has Authority to Order Explosives Testing at Badger, EPA Says (2011)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: Nov 1, 2011 and Updated Jul 1, 2012 By Tim Damos, News Republic State regulators temporarily have withdrawn a requirement that the military expand soil testing at the Badger Army Ammunition Plant near Baraboo. The decision allows the Army and its...
U.S. Army Recants Promise to Test for All Explosives at Badger Ammo
The 300-acre Settling Ponds Area spans more than 2 miles along the southern boundary of the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant. During active production years, these ponds received sanitary and industrial wastewater from the entire facility and surface runoff from...
Badger Army Groundwater 25,000 Times Safe Standards
CSWAB Wants State to Set Enforceable Timelines for Compliance On June 2, the U.S. Army submitted a 730-page report to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on potential remedies for groundwater contamination at and near the former Badger Army...
CSWAB Calls for New Advisory for Toxic PFAS Chemical
Today, CSWAB petitioned the Wisconsin DNR for a reassessment of the state's Groundwater Health Advisory Level (HAL) for a PFAS chemical known as PFBS. If approved, the toxicological review is expected to reduce the State’s current HAL from 450,000 ppt (parts per...