ROCKFORD, MI — Wolverine World Wide is prepared to spend millions of dollars to clean up water contamination tied to tannery waste, the shoe company’s CEO said Wednesday.
The comments were the first Krueger has made publicly about the company’s responsibility in the state’s growing investigation of a toxic chemical which has subsequently polluted the Rogue River in Rockford and poisoned drinking water supplies in Plainfield Township.
The water contamination question was the first one asked during the nearly hour-long call to discuss third quarter results that exceeded analysts’ expectation.
Wolverine spent $500,000 in the last quarter, and was on pace to spend another $2 million to $3 million in the current quarter, Chief Financial Officer Michael D. Stornant said.
"But that is really conservative," Stornant told analysts.
Wolverine briefly warned of potential environmental problems in its 2016 annual report.
One study, he said, found that about 98 percent of people in the U.S. have some of the chemical in their body.
"Right now, it’s not a regulated substance for drinking water from the state of Michigan or most states," said Krueger.
"As a company we have taken a very proactive and conservative approach," Krueger said.
Despite Wolverine executives saying they didn’t know about problems until 2016, recent documents indicate the shoe company was contacted by 3M in 1999 about potential environmental and health issues connected to Scotchgard.

As the suburbs of cities like Atlanta spread further away from the city center, new infrastructure is needed to support them.
Without proper planning, storm water (including rain and melting snow) could ultimately cause water pollution that ends up putting Georgia residents at risk for health problems.
As rain or melting snow flow over roadways, parking lots and even roofs, it picks up pollutants such as oil.
Storm water runoff also affects humans who live in the area.
Sewage systems can backup due to ineffective and inefficient drainage systems.
If that happens, heavy metals, excess nutrients and pathogens, along with toxins can leach into the drinking water supply.
Some could even contract dysentery or other diseases associated with particular pollutants.
These health consequences would more than likely attract the attention of federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, among others.
Before embarking on plans to expand the infrastructure, it might be beneficial to ensure that any plans comply with federal and state environmental laws.
Source: americanrivers.org, "How Stormwater Affects Your Rivers", Accessed on Nov. 6, 2017

That’s the bad news.
Yet this incident is just one of the latest in a series of similar incidents that indicate that many of Malaysia’s water sources are in a parlous state.
From Sabah to Penang, they are already badly polluted or else at perennial risk of being polluted by locals and local businesses alike.
In Johor itself just the other day Hasni Mohammad, chairman of State Works at the Rural and Regional Development Committee, called for harsher laws to better protect the state’s rivers.
“Laws related to water pollution offences and enforcement practised in those agencies differed from one another,” he explained.
“The Johor state government is of the opinion that the laws did not really reflect the importance for us to regulate or monitor all forms of threats to our existing (water) resources.” In a like vein, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has decried “illegal factories and farms [that] pollute our waterways and environment for their own gain.” The ministry has urged local authorities to “look into this matter seriously and expeditiously in order to prosecute the chicken farm owners for jeopardising the lives and livelihood of 600,000 people in the vicinity to the full extent of existing laws and enforce based on their jurisdiction.” In the meantime, the ministry is drafting a new bill to standardize the management of the country’s water resources in all the states.
“The present water policy is fragmented across the different states.
Under this new proposal, there will be a central monitoring committee (to oversee the states),” Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar has said.
“We are just providing the rules, the framework and how to manage (the water resources).” More or better laws alone won’t be enough, however.
Instead, we will need to start treating their water sources as the precious resources as they are.

Since 2015, when water pollution incidents constantly made front page headlines in China, many people have stopped the common practice of drinking boiled tap water, worrying their health might be affected by unknown contamination in rivers and underground water.
At least one third of China’s rivers and lakes are severely polluted and nearly 70 percent of the drinking water in the country’s rural areas are unsafe, said Zhang Xiaoquan, chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a leading nongovernmental organization that works for global conservation.
Meanwhile, climate change has made the issue even more challenging as China is more severely affected than other countries, Willam McGoldrick, director of TNC’s Global Climate Strategy project, said at a seminar in Hong Kong on Thursday.
It has also led to more floods in summer and more droughts in winter in southern China, McGoldrick explained.
Under these circumstances, water conservancy is not only a matter of curbing pollution, but also about increasing the efficiency of water usage, such as recycling and reducing water waste, he added.
All-out efforts Facing the public’s concerns and the pressing issue of water shortages, the Chinese government has vowed to make all-out efforts, including enacting the "harshest ever" Action Plan for Prevention and Treatment of Water Pollution, as well as attracting various social groups to find a joint solution.
In the latest move, it amended the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law in June, which brings the "River Chief" system into being.
Polluting companies face a maximum fine of 1 million yuan ($150,000) and suspension or even closure, according to the amended law that will take effect on January 1, 2018.
However, most PPP are currently from State-owned companies, which means that funding from the private sector is still limited due to concerns over investment-return rates and policy risks, said experts.
Apart from efforts to mobilize the private sector, China is also encouraging participation from academies and international NGOs for professional and diversified solutions.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly two billion people don’t have safe drinking water.
Not only a problem for developing countries, water across the world is contaminated with pollutants that treatment plants are not prepared to filter.
Water Pollution Threatens Your Health Pollution is not only affecting the health of humans, but also plants and animals on which we depend for our food supply.
And more than 80 percent of wastewater contaminated by human waste is discharged into rivers and oceans without any pollution removal.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and tested streams across the U.S., looking for 719 organic chemicals in 38 different sources.
This is an abject failure by the EPA, including members of Congress charged with overseeing the agency, and every American should be outraged by this inaction.” US Government Policies May Increase Your Risk While more than half the world is drinking water contaminated by pollution – whether animal or human waste, agricultural runoff or pharmaceutical products – proposed federal regulations would likely loosen standards and drive water and environmental pollution to even higher levels.
It’s executive orders that are threatening the safety of our drinking water for 117 million Americans.” The changes to environmental policy of this administration make it highly likely water pollution, affecting both the health of the environment and the people drinking it will only increase, triggering far more damage in the coming years than can reasonably be anticipated now.
Water pollution and filtration in countries where people are forced to gather water from streams and wells increase the risk these sources are polluted with feces and other pathogenic contaminants.
Although clay pots are an effective means of primary filtration when water treatment is unavailable, additional home filtration is often necessary, even when tap water is delivered to your home from wastewater treatment plants.
One of the best types of filters uses a three-stage filtration process – micron sediment pre-filter, a Kinetic Degradation Fluxion water filter and a high-grade carbon water filter.

Hyderabad: The Telangana fisheries department has written to the Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) to check the water quality in 118 water bodies in certain districts for the state for possible contamination.
The water bodies, primarily irrigation tanks, are likely to have been contaminated by industrial pollution, dumping of garbage and sewage water, said a senior official from the Fisheries department, who did not want to be quoted.
“They have already responded to us, asking on what parameters they should test the water bodies,” he told Mint.
The 118 water bodies are located in about 10 districts out of 31 in Telangana, he added.
The development comes a few weeks after the TSPCB penalized 18 industrial units in Sanga Reddy district, about 50km from Hyderabad, for letting contaminated water into the Gandigundem lake.
Thousands of fish—120 tonnes, worth Rs1 crore—perished in the contaminated water.
It also ordered a fine of Rs40,000 to be paid by another 11 industrial units as compensation to fishermen at Ayyamma lake.
All the 29 industrial units are situated near the catchment areas of the two lakes.
Among the fish that are bred in the state, the Katla, Rohu, Brigala and common carp are the most common, she added.
“Based on the committee’s findings on the analysis we get on the water quality, action will be taken,” he stated.

Here’s the first installment, on Leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that can be deadly if left untreated.
San Juan, Puerto Rico—Conditions are ripe for disease in Puerto Rico.
People are living many to a house or shelter, as they concentrate near sources of power and running water.
It’s still unclear whether Leptospirosis is spreading or not.
Samples from the suspected cases have been sent to the US for testing.
The first 10 cases were reported the second week of October; a week later, they had gone up to 73 suspected cases.
Walke, and Puerto Rico’s state epidemiologist, Carmen Deseda, say they are waiting for the rest of the test results to evaluate whether there’s been an outbreak or not.
Puerto Ricans should be cautious about those diseases as well, they add.
In the meantime, they say, they are treating all patients with Leptospirosis symptoms with antibiotics.
“Time will tell how efficient we were in spreading that message.” She and Walke expect the threat of disease to go down as power and water services are restored.

The U.S. Air Force this week updated city officials on the design of a treatment system for the Haven well, which was contaminated by its activities at the former Pease Air Force Base.
Haven, one of three wells owned by the city of Portsmouth at Pease International Tradeport, was shut off in May 2014 due to PFC contamination.
“Perhaps,” he said, “by this time next year we’ll be talking about construction.” It will be at least three years after the PFC contamination was discovered that construction of a treatment system could begin.
The base closed in 1991, so those contaminants have been migrating through the water supply, and into people’s drinking water, for decades, proving the lingering toxicity of PFCs.
Meanwhile, Newington Selectman Ted Connors said there are 40 private wells in Newington “with some sort of contamination.” Several were tested after the Haven well was shut down and showed PFC contamination.
It is mind-boggling that Portsmouth and Seacoast leaders, many of whom pride themselves on preserving and protecting our environment, are willing to let this process crawl along with little action.
The Air Force is slowly designing a treatment system at its contaminated former base that might be constructed next year.
The Coakley Landfill Group, made up by municipalities and entities that used the landfill, including the city of Portsmouth and U.S. Air Force, is doing everything it can to not properly remediate the site.
Those funds are available to defray some of the cost to extend municipal water lines in Greenland and Newington as needed.
Public water lines from three local utility companies were extended to most of the homes and businesses in that area by the end of 1983.

Ted Leopold, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll (Photo: Melanie Bell) A lead lawyer spearheading the litigation over the Flint water crisis has brought a class action over drinking water contamination that allegedly has exposed residents in five counties to liver cancer and other health risks.
du Pont de Nemours and Co. and its subsidiary, The Chemours Co.
The suit claims both companies, which make Teflon, created a public health crisis when they dumped several chemicals into the Cape Fear River for decades from a plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina—then hid their actions from federal and state regulators.
“Together, the chemical compounds DuPont discharged into the Cape Fear River over 45 years comprise a toxic cocktail with serious impacts to plaintiff’s and class members’ health, property and lives,” the complaint says.
Calls to du Pont and Chemours, both based in Delaware, were not returned.
The complaint cites numerous internal studies that DuPont conducted on rats as part of a 2009 consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that found incidences of cancer and birth defects.
But DuPont failed to warn regulators or the public about the risks and dismissed the findings, concluding that they weren’t relevant to human health, the complaint says.
The class action seeks damages and injunctive relief for residents of five counties that get their drinking water from the Cape Fear River.
According to the complaint, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that those five counties, with a population of nearly 775,000, have the highest concentration of liver disease in the United States.
In February, DuPont and Chemours agreed to pay $670.7 million to settle 3,550 lawsuits over C8 contamination of the Ohio River in West Virginia.

The driving factors, limitations, restraints, trends, opportunities, challenges, and future prospects of the global industrial wastewater treatment equipment market have also taken into consideration in this study.
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According to the research report, the growing concerns over the rising water pollution is likely to influence the global market for industrial wastewater treatment equipment market significantly in the coming years.
The increasing prevalence of water-borne diseases is also projected to boost the demand for these devices in the near future, notes the market study.
In this research report, the worldwide market for industrial wastewater treatment equipment has been broadly evaluated on the basis of the type of the product type, the application, and the geographical spread of this market.
The oil and gas, chemicals, power generation, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and the mining industries have surfaced as the prime application areas of industrial wastewater treatment equipment.
Europe, Southeast Asia, North America, Japan, India, and China have been identified as the key regional markets for industrial wastewater treatment equipment across the world in this market report.
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It presents a review of the profiles of the key players operating in this market to identify their growth prospects and the main strategies they adopt to increase their visibility for the expansion of their businesses.
Aquatech International, Sulzer, Smith & Loveless Inc., GDF SUEZ, Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, Gorman-Rupp Co., GE Water, Xylem, Evoqua, Watts, Seimens, Severn Trent Services, SPX, Komline Sanderson, 3M Purification, Nalco, Flow Serve, Calgon Carbon, Degremont, Pentair, and Danaher are some of the leading players in the global market for industrial wastewater treatment equipment, states the research study.