Clean drinking water should not be a partisan issue

It seems just about everything is a partisan issue these days, even clean drinking water. You would think the right to water that doesn’t make us sick would be something everyone can support. But not in Madison, where a fight is brewing over plans to spend state money to improve the health of our drinking water. In his State of the State speech, Governor Tony Evers proposed spending $100 million to combat forever-chemicals known as PFAS. Evers called for adding the money as part of his next state budget. The money would go to hire more staff, to provide more help to local governments dealing with polluted water and an increase in testing and monitoring. But during his speech when he spoke of trying to tackle the PFAS problem, few Republican lawmakers stood to applaud his stance. That is not a good sign for getting the funding to address PFAS through the Legislature. More than 50 communities across the state are dealing with PFAS problems, including on French Island, where families have been relying on bottled water for two years. PFAS remains a serious problem, and it is time to address it for the health of our citizens. That is something we all should be able to agree on.