“ROCKFORD, MI — Rockford officials are proud and relieved the city’s municipal drinking water supply has tested free of toxic chemicals used by Wolverine World Wide at the company’s former tannery complex on the Rogue River.
That’s because the city switched its water source 18 years ago to a 200-plus-foot deep groundwater well system that pulls from a clay-protected aquifer underneath Tiamo Lane NE.
But prior to 2000, the city sourced water from the Rogue River about 300 yards downstream of the Wolverine tannery grounds, where testing in October confirmed groundwater near the riverbank was polluted by extremely high levels of toxic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, called PFAS or PFCs.
The chemicals — at the heart of a widespread toxic dumping investigation — are also confirmed in the river downstream of the tannery. Experts say their presence in the river and tannery groundwater point toward a disturbing conclusion that’s been gone largely unspoken but not entirely unnoticed in Rockford since the PFAS investigation began last year.
Rockford may have been drinking PFAS for years, maybe decades.”
Read the full article by Garret Ellison.