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Very well done, very nice.
Congratulations, that was your best live open yet.
It was also, it was your first
Um, yeah.
That's okay.
Well, thanks,
go, at least.
Yeah.
Thanks for the audition.
He gave it your best.
Hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 606 on a another beautiful day to have you here.
This time, not so much up north is on the road.
It's a Thursday morning, October 2 2025.
And we appreciate you being here all across the civic media radio network.
And wherever you're joining us either on the radio or through podcasts or YouTube, Facebook, however you got here.
Nice to have you along.
I got a question for you.
If anybody knows anybody that can write a bill, once the government's open again, can we make a law about airplane seats?
I mean, I get that I'm not, you know, Svelte size zero, but even for somebody who is like Parker over here, Parker Olson producing this shindig here.
The airplane seats are officially ridiculous now.
I mean, it just feels like they
They just don't even, they're not even trying anymore.
It's just like, yeah, we know we got you.
You're cattle.
Get in.
Which was the case last night.
But anyway, good, good people.
You know, there weren't any no travel nightmares.
That's
Yeah.
Oh, well, yeah, exactly.
Let's see.
What do we got here on Tony from YouTube?
No musical talent.
I've heard rumors of his excellent recorder ability from his elementary school days.
That's debatable.
And a high five Parker from Roger for for the live intro.
So there he comes.
So we got all that going for us here.
So anyway, so
So yeah, we're here for a couple of days and kind of doing our annual pre winter tour of the daughters because traveling in the middle of winter is no fun.
So we try to see them on either side of things when we've we've got to get going out and about, which means I didn't get to watch any of the baseball yesterday.
And so if you're wondering, do the brewers know who they're facing yet?
No, no.
No, they do not because the Padres were able to beat the Cubs blank them yesterday.
Three nothing.
So that series is tied at one game apiece.
Cleveland beat Detroit to tie that series at one game apiece.
The Yankees defeated Boston to tie that series at one game apiece.
The only one that wasn't in doubt the Dodgers once again walloped Cincinnati eight to four.
So thanks to the Reds for trying so hard to get that wildcard spot.
There is always that
It is.
It makes it for a long winter in New York, which is just fine for the Mets fans.
So anyway, the Dodgers will move on and take on the Philadelphia Phillies.
And meanwhile, Tony says Cleveland really proved the doubters like Pat wrong yesterday with that huge six to one win.
Easy, Tony.
Easy.
Nobody
And nobody was doubting.
Well, what we were doing, the only thing we were doing is we were rooting for a three game series with the Padres and the Cubs.
So if they were out there, they're pitching staffs.
Well, we were also rooting.
I don't know about you.
I am rooting for the Red Sox to be the Yankees.
Because if the Yankees win that series, that means the Brewers play at one o'clock on Saturday.
And if the Red Sox win that series, that means that the Brewers play at eight o'clock on Saturday.
And for me, eight o'clock is a significantly better time.
That's a that's a wild swing.
Isn't it?
Times there.
Yes.
So give me that again.
So I know who we're rooting for here.
So the Red Sox Yankees, they have their third and deciding game this evening at seven o'clock.
And so how does this break down?
against the winner of the Padres
Pretty much.
Yeah, it is.
You know, it's it's always about
the TV, it's always about the money.
And we are we're just along for the ride, you know, that's why we're paying paying that much as we are for, you know, our cable bill tickets, you know, even what you're paying for beer is higher than it needs to be somebody's got to pay for all those commercials.
And that's the that's the sports world that we live in here.
But anyway, so we we've now
managed to bring ourselves fully into October here.
I'm very excited to see what things will look like when we get back because by that time we should really start to see the leaves turning or falling.
I don't know, I may get back and find that you know, the leaves are three feet deep, you know, by the time we get there.
So we will see.
But
But we are looking ahead to the weekend already.
And so Sharita Booker is going to be along in less than 10 minutes and telling us about some of the events that are going to be going on this weekend.
Do they include anything for you, Mr. Olson?
Are you making plans yet?
Oh, that would make it tough.
So it's whitewater football again.
All right.
Go
Well, I mean,
Somebody's got
have that little clicker in their hand and getting them.
I mean, you probably get carpal tunnel by about the 15,000th click on there.
But yeah, I
So are you looking forward to the environment of having that many people around?
Or are you wishing that there were like seven people there and you had the city to yourself?
hole.
Well, unless you become national champions in a sport, baseball or something, everybody wants to be there.
Roger says it's it's always it's all about the Yankees.
And let's see, he also says a YAC football conference openers are
weekend.
makes sense.
three.
Tony and Tony on YouTube says in general, it's always best practice to root against the Yankees.
Well, yeah, that's kind of a given.
I can go along with that.
So that's where we stand heading into the weekend.
And of course, the Packers have a bi weekend.
So once again, it's one of the best weekends of the year for getting all that fall maintenance done because you don't you don't have that excuse all over the place.
They're homeowners going, oh, okay, I guess I got to do this if I got to.
So
it's it's not like we're doing much else in terms of you know, things that require a government service since the things are still shut down.
And I will admit, I was really nervous about traveling last night.
Yeah.
And I know that at some point, if this goes on based on, you know,
previous shutdowns, you will start to see flight delays as they start furloughing people or if they don't furlough them, you know, they're already short staffed and they're looking for people to work extra shifts and people are going to say, no, because you're not paying me because people are doing all kinds of work today, all around the government, the essential workers, and they will not have a paycheck coming in at the end of the week.
And you and I wouldn't go for that.
Parker, if we
said that there will not be a paycheck waiting for you at the end of the week.
What would you do?
imagine you putting your headphones down and just walking away at that news.
Yes.
And that's what we're facing right now.
And frankly, you know, the shutdown is not, you know, that's not making anybody happy except for the people who caused it, obviously.
And
If you're the president of the United States, well, first off, you don't care about polls, okay?
You care about ratings and obviously Trump knows how to get ratings, but there's a new market poll out.
It's a national survey.
This one's not a Wisconsin survey, but a national survey that shows that the president's overall job performance stands at 43%.
I mean, it's just continuing to fall disapproval rating at 57%.
Approval still remains strong among Republicans 81%.
Although, again, 81% approval among Republicans is that's 8 percentage points lower than it was in January.
And it means that about one in five Republicans now disapprove of Trump's job performance.
Now, the approval varies all across individual issues, according to the write up of this poll from Anna Kleiber at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
His highest approval is for handling border security.
But then there are other issues like, oh, I don't know, handling the Jeffrey Epstein case where he's only got a 28% approval rating.
Seems to me the kind of thing that maybe you would look for a distraction if that's the kind of thing that's happening out there.
Let's see, want to get in a text comment on the line here from Jim in Brookfield, who says good morning, Pat.
That was a nice intro by Parker.
But hopefully you'll still keep Don, you know, Don Rue, who yes, who does the regular intro.
Yes.
I'm curious as to who wrote the nice music to the opening, which is a perfect melody for a morning show.
Well, thank you, Jim in Brookfield for that.
And the answer to who wrote that nice melody to open up the show is we don't know.
It's it's a
I
might be able to find that.
You could actually find the composer of our generic music library.
It's not anybody that you would know, I guess, is what we're trying to say here.
Which would be really nice.
We'd be very happy to put on the music of local artists.
Oh yeah, that'd be awesome.
We'd do that for the same reason that we do the music library.
it's really expensive to go with music that you've actually heard of here.
The radio stations do pay for a music license and we can use whatever music we want on the radio, but if we want to stream the show as well as we do on Facebook and YouTube, you just get these you get these messages all the time from Facebook and YouTube saying, oh, you're using copyrighted music and we're going to have to mute your your stream or we're going to count this against you and maybe suspend your account and we just
you know, you can always appeal it and say, Hey, guys, we're radio station, we have permission.
But, you know, you can never talk to a human, it's always about the bots.
Yeah.
And he's got tired of fighting the bots.
Like, let's let's just use a production library.
And that's, you know, music that we can use him.
But again, if they're, if you know somebody that's in a local band, and they want to, you know, highlight some of their music, we would totally take that with
permission.
That that would be it.
I found the trumpet is is the name of the tune.
There you go.
And as you listen to the production library, I'm thinking that is such an interesting gig because there are people who are always working to create the next big top 40 hit, you know, or just the next big hit in.
any of the genres.
And then there's other people that are like, you know, what's the next great background music?
music.
Yeah.
Well, think about that when just when you're hearing the commercial break coming up here is you know, there's there's these music beds underneath and it is somebody's job to come up with just the right sound for any given commercial or any given promotion at any given point.
And it's
Yes, it is.
Trust me.
You have to play a lot of clips just to find the one, the one good one that you're going to hear coming up underneath me.
As I say, coming up next, we're going to talk to Up North News social media manager, Sherita Booker about some of the events happening around Wisconsin this weekend.
I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News.
Thanks for joining us all across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Bring up that trumpet.
It'll be along in a second, trust me.
There
it is.
We're back now and Sharita Booker is here, social media manager for UpNorth News and so she's putting up various stories that we work on and sometimes, you know, talking about the events that happen around Wisconsin and that's what we're doing here.
Talk about things that you might be able to do this weekend on a little road trip near or far.
Sharita, how's it going?
Good.
How are you?
doing all right thanks let's look at things that are happening this weekend and one of them frankly is already going on because it is such a big deal it is of course the world dairy expo and continues on this week so tell some of the things folks can look forward to
through tomorrow.
And that is at the Align Energy Center in Madison.
And the event draws tens of thousands of attendees from across the U.S.
and around the world featuring top cattle compositions, education sessions, networking for dairy producers and over 400 companies displaying dairy equipment, genetics, feeds, veterinary supplies, milking systems, tech innovations and more.
And of course there will be food.
Some of that lineup includes the grilled cheese headquarters that serve in a plastic melts and specialty grilled cheeses, the Wisconsin
Cattleman's booth will have rib eye steak sandwiches shaped beef roast and jumbo.
Be pot dogs and it wouldn't be a dairy expo in Wisconsin without cheese curds cheddar nuggets and jalapeno cheddar bites Admission starts at $20 per day and children 12 and under are free.
So for tickets and more info visit realdairy expo.com
worlddairy expo.com And yeah, it's a very detailed schedule that they have here and it is just kind of like the you know, the world series of Dairy products and some places already have been bragging about their awards this week already.
So if you're in the Madison area
you go check that out.
If you're closer to the northeastern part of the state and can get out to Manitowoc, some folks are already planning Halloween events and there's one going in Manitowoc this weekend.
It looks to be, is that Saturday only it looks like?
Okay.
just Saturday from 3 to 10 p.m.
and entry is totally free.
The brand new Halloween Street Festival will be packed with live music, food trucks, local makers and artists and fall fun in the heart of downtown.
Some of the food truck lineup includes Paul Smoke Hub,
Paul's Smokehouse and Barbecue, El Tequila Manitowoc, TR Bubble Tea, Sweet Escapes, Views, Thai Street Food, and Holy Moly Canole.
This is a family-friendly event, so bring the kids off for face painting, balloon twisting, a dual-lane slide bouse house, live pumpkin carving, fun photo ops, and free treat bags for the kids while supplies last.
And for more information, visit nightmareoff8thstreet.com.
I like that.
Instead of Nightmare on Elm Street, it's Nightmare off 8th Street, which is kind of in the area there.
Do you get into Halloween-related events?
Great.
No, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Good deal.
And we're going to wrap up up north way up north in Bayfield.
And if you've never been to the Bayfield Apple Festival, if you ever get the chance on this first weekend of October, I mean, do yourself a favor and go.
You know, the weather is usually gorgeous and there's so much to do.
Tell folks more about it, Sharita.
Yep, and this is their 63rd annual Apple Festival and that's happening Friday through Sunday and in three days will be full of good food live music carnival rides and of course plenty of apples You can pick your own at one of Bayfield's orchards or grab it back to take home There's a full schedule of events this weekend from Friday the mayor will officially proclaim it Apple Festival weekend in Bayfield on Saturday things kick off with the pipes and drums of Thunder Bay performing at 10 a.m
over at Port Superior Marina.
The fireman's fish fry is at 11 a.m.
and that supports local first responders.
You can also try your hand at the Apple Peeling Contest at 1 p.m.
and see if you can beat the record for the longest peel.
Then on Sunday, the festival wraps up at the Grand Parade at 2 p.m.
downtown.
The pipes and jump span will be back for that one too.
And for the full schedule, visit bayfield.org slash apple-festival.
All right.
And again, I've been in the parade before up there.
It's a long and packed route.
A lot of folks up there.
It's a great chance for them to get away.
And again, folks would really enjoy that.
I know I passed by Warren's last weekend.
A lot of folks there for the Cranberry Festival there.
I think Stone Lakes is this weekend as well, if I'm not mistaken.
So that's going to be another
crowded place in Northwest Wisconsin, but good crowds, good food, lots of vendors, lots to do.
And a Sharita Booker gives us all the details on these events every single weekend at this time.
So Sharita, hope your weekend is a nice fun.
Is it going to be fun or relaxing?
Relaxing, just how I like it.
Okay, I vote for relaxing too.
All right, Sharita, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, Pat.
Let me see.
Double check things here.
And yes, indeed, the Stone Lake Cranberry Festival is this weekend.
Let's see.
Honorable mention to some of the other things.
Phillips Fall Harvest Festival is going on.
Autumn Fest in Broadhead.
It's Crafttoberfest in Green Bay.
That would be your craft beers are going to be celebrated Saturday at the Resh Center.
Galesville has their Apple Affair.
And Monroe has the Happy Harvest Fest.
Who wouldn't want to go to a happy harvest fest?
Yeah, no you have to be happy about these things like like Tony who's up there in the Ashland Bayfield area And he's very excited for the Apple Festival up in Bayfield like I said always a always a good time there so and I liked when Sherita mentioned like the apple peeling Part where you ever get going on peeling an apple and you realize hey, this is I'm really getting
getting something good here and you want to show somebody and nobody really cares.
But now we have a contest dedicated to it.
If you think you can peel an entire apple in one sitting, this is
place for you.
Oh, really?
Oh, okay.
See, every so I get the the
in return for peeling all of the apples.
Sherry makes apple crisp and apple sauce and all of that stuff.
So I might have to enter this contest just to see how things go.
Come
back
up.
Yes, exactly.
All right.
Coming up in just a bit here, we are going to have today's history lesson, including a little ditty about Jack and Diane from one Johnny Cougar and much more all ahead.
Oh, Tony says this is a talent.
You can't just do it.
Alright, work on your apple peelings folks during the break.
We'll be back.
I'm Pat Crightlough.
Welcome back.
It is 635 now and at quite low Parker Olson here, Parker's back at Madison Studio A2.
And I'm on the road this week.
I've managed to swing over closer to the hotel window here to let in some natural light.
And I just wonder if the people at the condos across the way are like, what is going on over there with the lights and the computers and everything else?
But
if they only could know
to tune in, they would know the Jack and Diane, that little ditty.
about kids growing up in the Heartland was the number one song this day in 1982.
It would be John Cougar, Mellon Camp's only number one hit on the Hot 100.
He was Johnny Cougar at the time that this was out.
And then shortly afterwards, he was like, this is stupid.
I want to use my real name again.
I know.
No, he was not.
Roger notes on Facebook, the Jack and Diane was the only number one single on Reva Records.
Roger I don't know how you knew that but you of course I had to go look that up now because you put that on there and Reva Records was a short-lived British label Created for Rod Stewart by Rod Stewart's manager.
It had signed John Cougar melon camp and then when they Rod Stewart and John Cougar left The record label disappeared and there you go Roger you kept that little piece of information all this time That I now got to share with a statewide audience.
Oh, that's, that's really all all we've got going for us here.
Program.
Stupid little facts.
Like this one.
Coincidentally, talking about Rod Stewart, he and his group Faces had the number one song this day in 1971.
And Maggie May, the number one song this day, 54 years ago.
All right, let's go back to 60 years ago this week when the number one song was by the McCoys.
This
is one of those great did you know things.
First off, did you know the lead singer here?
is Rick Derringer, later on of rock and roll Hoochie Coofame, but initially he was with the McCoys.
Oh yeah, there he is, Hang on Sluppy, Rick Derringer, who by the way, when he did this, he's 17 years old.
17 years old and he had the number one song 60 years ago today with Hang on Sluppy.
Happy 80th birthday to Don McLean who, you know, every so often somebody writes that thing and you go, that's a really long song.
I don't know if it's going to catch on with people.
Don McLean's song caught on with
people.
Watching on social media, like is Parker singing along?
Does Parker know this song from the early 70s?
I do know this song.
He does.
See, that's the thing.
Some of these songs, they have real staying power.
Yeah.
And American Vice certainly is one of them.
On this date in 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first black U.S.
Supreme Court justice.
Happy birthday to Sting.
Stingitola.
Stingalinga Ding Dong.
He was born Gordon Sumner this day in England, 1951, making him 74 years old today.
Of course, he started with the police songs like this one that were big 44 years ago.
This is from the police album, their fourth album, Ghost in the Machine.
It was the number one album this week in 1981.
Yeah, it brings birthday and on his 30th birthday.
He had a big hit album.
Did you have that on your 30th birthday?
I did not.
Parker has a chance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's something you can do something by your 30th birthday.
Maybe there is.
Yes.
Let's see.
This is the anniversary of the birth of the late Lolli Vegas.
You may not have heard of Lolli Vegas, but you know the band if you know your classic rock, Redbone, and their big hit from 1974.
So that's Lolli Vegas, who was the lead vocalist and guitarist for Redbone, born Candido Vasquez in California, and is one of the biggest ever Billboard acts with Native American heritage as part of Redbone.
A lot of other birthdays here today, more than we can grab records for.
There's Mike Rutherford of Genesis, who turned 75 today.
There's Philip Oki of the Human League, and he is 70 years old today.
And then there's Tiffany.
Remember Tiffany from the late 1980s.
Tiffany Darwish is now 54 years old today.
Remember that it wasn't a feud, but the Tiffany and Debbie Gibson were both of these teeny-bopper pop stars that were on the charts at the same time.
And let's see it.
But back to the Redbone song.
Again, it's got staying power in part.
It helps if you get a movie soundtrack deal.
And Alicia puts up on YouTube.
The only reason I know the song is because of Guardians of the Galaxy.
Oh, yeah.
But it got chosen because it is a good song and, you know, it's simply going to get a whole new generation of fans thanks to being on that soundtrack.
It's still one of the best soundtracks, the original Guardians of the Galaxy one.
Oh, you don't just pull a bunch of music.
This is a carefully curated.
Yes,
Yes, you could say that.
Happy birthday to Robbie Neville.
He is 66 today and had his hit back in 1986.
Happy birthday to Kelly Rippa.
She is 55 years old today.
Is she still doing the morning show and with her husband now, right?
Who is
Kelly?
Kelly Rippa's husband because, you know, she was doing, it was first it was live with Regis and Kathy Lee and then Kathy Lee left and it was Regis and Kelly Rippa.
And then Kelly Rippa had, who was it?
Michael Strahan and now believe that Kelly Rippa's doing the show with her husband.
two.
Yeah.
Mark.
There we go.
Mark.
Consulos.
She's had that for a while.
Yes, sir.
Well, let's keep in mind.
Yes, it's Nashville, but it's also Tennessee.
This is
true.
It's more Tennessee than it is.
It probably is.
Yeah, exactly.
Let's see on the National Day calendar.
Today it is International Day of Nonviolence.
This is Name Your Car Day.
All right, we got to stop a pause on that one for a minute.
Did we have this discussion a week or two ago about people who named their cars?
Did we?
I don't I don't
remember if we had it on the radio or off air, that there there are people who, yes, do do name their cars.
Yeah,
I didn't name my car.
But I mean, my original car was a 73 Plymouth Fury.
It was green.
It was held together by Rust and duct tape.
And so I mean, I referred to it as the green pile.
But that's, you know, that's not a name.
But yeah, there's other people.
I believe it was Melissa Kay was telling us she she'd named her car.
Okay, all right, that kind of makes sense.
Thankfully, Tony is playing the role of our institutional memory and says it was a really long time ago that you and Greg had the conversation on naming cars.
So there you go, Parker, you're off the hook.
Thanks, Tony.
Remembering this show better than the host.
And that's an important thing.
Thanks,
Tony.
And national custodian day is today.
And again, talk about your essential workers who are underappreciated.
And it was a school custodian was actually the job that my dad kind of did in his retirement or I guess semi retirement because he ended up taking a custodian job at an elementary school.
And it was a great
Second career, I guess you could call it because I mean all the all the kids just loved Mr. Jerry Oh, Mr. Jerry this and Mr. Jerry that and and of course Mr. Jerry being a you know, lifetime member of the United States Army had no problem drilling these kids and enforcing the rules.
Okay, we're doing the tough love thing.
Yeah.
And so like if
Let's see, there was one time and now this was in Arizona, so he's not going to get in trouble here in Wisconsin.
incriminating
Somebody's like, Mr. Jerry, somebody threw their their boot up there up on the roof of the school.
Can you go up and get it?
And instead, he just like took the other boot from the kid and threw it up on the roof.
It's like, well, now they match.
And then eventually he went to go get it.
They always liked seeing him on the roof.
And so finally he had the Institute of Rule that he was only going up to the roof once a week.
So if you threw a ball up there, it was staying there until he felt like he was going to go get it.
There's a lot to be said for all the school staff, you know, the folks in the lunchroom, the administration and the office and everything.
taking nothing away from teachers, but let's every so often give a shout out to those other folks who are around our kids every day and can have some kind of an influence.
And I am very sure that Mr. Jerry did on the school custodian day.
This is also World Farm Animals Day.
And I guess I need clarification like, you know, farm animals, you know, moo and oink, and gosh, you're really good for dinner.
Or are we talking like the animals that help out around the farm?
like your farm dogs and things like that.
Oh, that's okay.
It's not required.
What's required for you as always at this point is to give us a little entertainment or feature news to close out the segment.
I bet
I'm sorry.
Who?
Kai Sanat.
Wait, wait, you're not saying LeBron was on for 24.
Okay, so
all did he do 24 hours a day for 30 days on this live stream?
So it's a webcam, you know, that's just always pointed at, at Kaisenot.
there must be something noteworthy about
They're on only fans.
talk
OK.
Yes.
Did you see that Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert did a little show crossover?
Yeah.
And and who'd have thought that would be a common bond in society.
But you know, welcome to Donald Trump's America here.
So and Jimmy Fallon did something in his monologue like, I'm not going to get in trouble doing that stuff.
No, Jimmy, we know.
Yeah,
we
know that you are not in danger of doing anything edgy political enough to get you in trouble.
Some people really like that.
Others got to go with Jimmy or Stephen Colbert.
That is today's history segment and we'll have much more coming up.
on these mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by UpNorth News here on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Back in a bit.
at 6.52 now on this Thursday morning, October 2nd.
Nice to have you along.
I'm Pac Wright, Lowe Parker Olson here as well.
And in our next hour, Amy Pahachek, the Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, all about the many job training, job finding resources that are available out there.
Mel and Collie Note here coming in on the comment sections from Roger and Steven's point.
And I had to double check this online.
Rick Muzzy.
age 77 owner of locally owned Muzzy Broadcasting in Stevens Point died last Wednesday evening just days after his last radio shift at WSPT.
Rick purchased WSPT and WSPO which is now currently WPCN from Century Insurance back in 1988.
Rick would later acquire what is now WCWB in 1996.
He also owned the station in Ohio and was previously a co-owner of
of Z100 in Eau Claire, Rick Mosey again, 77 years old and went over to visit the WSPT.
website and Facebook page and it noted that it was with a heavy heart that they shared the passing of their owner.
He'd been a prominent member of the local community and the folks at Muzzy Broadcasting say they will continue on his legacy as Central Wisconsin's locally owned and operated radio stations and they talked about finding a poster in Rick's office that they felt was an appropriate way to end the message saying if you think anything is more important than a client, think again.
So again, it was Rick Muzzy who was a local radio owner in Central Wisconsin passing away and a lot of community folks remembering him very fondly.
Also in the news from Madeleine Heim at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a little background on why there is such a high level of PFAS contaminants near Rhinelander, and it turns out as many suspected that it's a paper mill that was responsible for it.
That's according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
which has been studying PFAS, these forever chemicals, these industrial chemicals that were used and everything from, you know, waterproofing to firefighting foam to nonstick cookware, all kinds of things that are, you know, these very strong manmade chemicals, but because they're built to be strong, they don't break down easily in nature.
Eventually worked their way to the drinking water supply and now PFAS chemicals have been found to be hazardous to human health.
Now we're talking about a category of some 5,000 different chemicals.
So each one's going to be a little bit different, but all of them are reason for concern.
And it turns out to be a mill that formerly had been owned by Wausau paper.
And what was happening is, as they were making specialty papers,
Part of the process is, you know, generating sludge, and then that sludge is spread on farm fields in the area.
And according to the material here in the journal Sentinel article, the sludge had been spread on multiple farm fields in the nearby town of Stella, at least since 1996.
And that the specialty paper produced at the mill included grease proof paper.
What is grease-proof paper?
Think of microwave popcorn bags.
And that's the kind of material that was made at that mill using a PFAS-contaminated chemical.
The current owners say they have not used any PFAS-type chemicals in their manufacturing process since they took over the plant back in 2018, but they are working along with the DNR to address any kind of cleanup issues.
it may be such an expensive proposition that it is possible the site will be designated as a superfund site and that would allow the federal government to get involved in its cleanup or at least you would hope so because again for decades now a superfund designation from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency would free up those funds to help with the cleanup.
Under this Trump administration, which is having a tough time finding the money for people affected by natural disasters like fires and Hurricanes and things like that It's hard to say if there's going to be this I don't mean to cast doubt on it ahead of time here But I think anybody who's watching this current federal government cannot necessarily feel assured that the resources are going to be coming right away which could lead to
a long time of dealing with contaminated water and because it's compromised, having to have bottled water trucked in.
After all, that's the case in the town of Pestigo, just outside Marinette, where again, hundreds of wells have been affected by the outdoor testing of firefighting foam at the Tycho Fire Products Facility.
And in the town of Campbell, outside of La Crosse,
There's also widespread PFAS contamination.
That one also from the use of firefighting foam at the La Crosse Regional Airport, apparently.
And in both communities, they've become very reliant on bottled water as a source of safe drinking water because, again, these chemicals are not easily discovered, not easily removed.
But we're going to hear more about it over time because these chemicals are being increasingly linked to types of kidney cancers, lower birth rates, harm to reproductive and immune systems, and problems with the thyroid.
And again, all of this in an article this morning in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel written up by Madeleine Heim about the contamination that was found in just this one area.
And it just reminds me again that in the Wisconsin legislature, a
A fight has been going on far longer than necessary over making sure that the DNR has the resources needed to test for PFAS contamination, but also to try to recoup some of the cleanup costs from the people who did the dumping in the first place.
And it doesn't mean that they did it intentionally.
It doesn't mean that they did it to harm the water.
Again, we're still learning more about PFAS as the years go by.
But the fact of the matter is they
they did allow these chemicals to be released.
And yet you have some big industrial representation out there in the form of Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce and plenty of other corporate attorneys who are looking to fight that and put it all on the DNR, meaning you and me, that the taxpayers alone would be solely on the hook for cleaning up contamination that's been done over the decades.
Again, good products, created jobs.
There was a lot positive about it, but we didn't know at the time, or maybe should have known, of the price that we'd all be paying potentially generations later.
Secretary Amy Pahachek from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development is coming up in our next hour.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
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