The Water We Swim In University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute

How does lead contamination affect Great Lakes communities, especially marginalized ones? In this episode, Bonnie and guest host Dr. Deidre Peroff to explore the impact of lead contamination in Milwaukee. 
Special thanks to our guests:
Jamie Ferschinger, (former) Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers
Alejandra Vigil, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers
Dr. Molly Cousin, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers
Professor Melissa Scanlan, UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences 
Andrian Lee, (former) Wisconsin Sea Grant, UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences
Links:
Resources for Milwaukee residents:Check if you home has a lead lateralLead-Safe MilwaukeeMilwaukee segregation mapCoalition on Lead Emergency
Badgers & Lead miningSpatialized Intersectionality: Gendered and Racialized Residential Segregation and the Milwaukee Lead Crisis by Erica Morell and Dalvery BlackwellThe intersectional effect of poverty, home ownership, and racial/ethnic composition on mean childhood blood lead levels in Milwaukee County neighborhoodsLead-Safe Wisconsin: Childhood Lead Poisoning Data and Data AnalysisWisconsin's Black children 4 times more likely to be lead poisoned than white children in 2022Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: A Historic Investment in WaterSixteenth Street’s Lead Poisoning Prevention work 

For the final episode of Public Trust, we head to the communities of Peshtigo and Marinette in northeast Wisconsin, where we meet local residents who have been engaged in a yearslong battle with a multinational company that polluted their drinking water with PFAS. We learn how community members have come together to fight for clean water and why they are committed for the long haul. 
Transcript available here.
Learn more:
Midwest Environmental Advocates
Wisconsin Sea Grant

Are PFAS in maple sap, wild rice, fish and other harvestable goods important to the Anishinaabe way of life? These are some of the questions the Voigt Intertribal Task Force asked Gavin Dehnert, Wisconsin Sea Grant’s emerging contaminants scientist, after PFAS were found in wolves. In this episode, Public Trust producer Bonnie tells Richelle about the beginnings of a tribally-driven research project testing the waters of the ceded territories of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan for PFAS.
Learn more:
Midwest Environmental Advocates
Wisconsin Sea Grant
GLIFWC - Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission
More about PFAS

Firefighting foams made from PFAS have been used at airports for decades, contaminating groundwater throughout the country. In this episode of Public Trust, we return to French Island, a community near La Crosse in Western Wisconsin, to learn more about how local drinking water became contaminated with PFAS.
Listen to episode 1 of Public Trust here.
View the transcript
Midwest Environmental Advocates
Wisconsin Sea Grant
More about PFAS
Lee Donahue’s testimony audio clip courtesy of Wisconsin Eye

Public Trust is a new podcast miniseries by Midwest Environmental Advocates and Wisconsin Sea Grant. The series explores Wisconsin's response to PFAS contamination. Host Richelle Wilson visits communities impacted by these toxic "forever chemicals" to understand how local residents have been affected and what they're doing to secure their rights to clean water.
In this episode, we travel to the small town of Campbell on French Island, to find out. French Island resident and local official Lee Donahue gives us a tour of the neighborhood and tells the story of how local drinking water was contaminated with "forever chemicals" - PFAS. Along the way, we meet local residents who reveal how the crisis has changed their lives and what they're doing to secure their rights to clean water.
Read the transcript here.
Learn more:
Midwest Environmental Advocates
Wisconsin Sea Grant
More about PFAS
News clips courtesy of WXOW News 19

Today, we're talking about red pine forests, blueberries, treaty rights, and how they all converge around fire on a tiny split of land jutting out into Lake Superior - Minnesota and Wisconsin Points. Melonee Montano tells us about the importance of cultural fire for the Anishinaabe people and Evan Larson takes us on a walk in the woods to decipher the stories left by elder trees. Wildland firefighter Damon Panek shares his vision for collaboratively restoring fire to Wisconsin and Minnesota points, an end goal of the Nimaawanji’idimin giiwitaashkodeng: We are all gathering around the fire project, funded by Wisconsin Sea Grant. 
 
Special thanks to our guests:
Melonee Montano, University of Minnesota
Evan Larson, University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Damon Panek, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Mocha, Valerie, Ashla, Emily, Project research team
Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant
 
Links:
Listen to the Wisconsin Water News episode The Stories Trees Tell
Read more about this project
Cultural fire returns to Stockton Island
Native fire management returns to Apostle Islands
Ojibwe history on Wisconsin Point is complicated, painful, beautiful
Wisconsin Point Restoration Site