Severe PFAS contamination in a small town's drinking water

Tucked among the woods and fields of northern Wisconsin, the Town of Stella is home to about 700 people. It’s also the site of some of the highest levels of PFAS groundwater contamination in the country.

In this video, Stella Town Chair Casey Crump explains how decades of paper mill sludge spread on nearby farm fields introduced PFAS into the soil, aquifers, private wells, and even the local food supply. Some wells in Stella have tested as high as 25,000 parts per trillion, more than 6,000 times higher than what’s considered safe by the EPA.

Like most rural communities in Wisconsin, the residents of Stella rely upon private wells for their drinking water. Families drank this water for years without knowing what was in it. Now residents are left asking impossible questions: What has this done to our health? To our kids? To the land and water that sustain our community?

Clean water is a basic human need, not a privilege. Private well owners deserve transparency, accountability, and the right to know when their water is unsafe.