Earlier this month, the Wisconsin Senate passed the Senate Bill 312 aimed at addressing “forever chemical” contaminations across the state. After receiving multiple press releases from the grassroots group Save Our Water stating, “members of the save our water made multiple attempts to engage with the bill’s authors, including Senator Wimberger, without success and instead of listening and prioritizing the needs of private well owners, the bills authors chose to prioritize special interests by placing limits on DNR’s ability to force corporate polluters to clean up their messes.” I reached out to Senator Eric Wimberger’s office via email early in the morning and within 20 minutes, I received a response, and by that afternoon, Eric and I were speaking on the phone. I asked Senator Wimberger what his lack of engagement was with the Save Our Water group.

Senator Wimberger says, “we’ve got this grant program. I want the DNR to actually do the work and commence rule-making processes, which they have not.”

Bill 312 will next go to the Assembly, but that vote likely won’t happen until the Legislature returns to the Capitol in January