New water offer to residents at former Wolverine tannery site
12/12/2019
Wolverine closed its tannery in 2009 but has faced legal battles over the issue of water at the site since 2017 when samples of water there were found to contain per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
It says it acted “quickly and voluntarily” to make sure local residents had access to safe and reliable drinking water by sampling wells, providing bottled water, and installing more than 700 filters in people’s homes. It has now announced that it will pay to connect these homes to the local municipal water supply so that families no longer have to rely on water from wells.
In a statement on December 10, chief executive, Blake Krueger, said: “Wolverine has been part of this community for almost 140 years and we are committed to being part of water quality solutions for our friends, families, and neighbours in the years to come. That’s why we took fast, proactive steps from the very beginning, and that’s also why we are taking the additional steps being announced today to fund the extension of municipal water to more than 1,000 properties and continue our environmental remediation efforts.”
The footwear company also said it hopes these actions will potentially lead to the resolution of lawsuits that some residents have raised.
Meanwhile, Wolverine continues to pursue litigation of its own against 3M, the manufacturer of the Scotchgard stain- and water-resistance product that Wolverine says is the source of the PFAS residue at Rockford. In public statements, 3M has so far limited itself to saying it voluntarily ceased production of these substances in 2000 and has since invested hundreds of millions of dollars on PFAS detection, measurement and remediation.
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