Exposure: Clear Intelligence on Environmental Risk

  Is a PFAS Reckoning Coming to Big Tech? For years, conversations in Wisconsin regarding per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) mostly centered on firefighting foam at airports, biosolids spread on farm fields, and legacy industrial sites in places like Marinette and Peshtigo. This spring, that conversation changed shape. With the signing of 2025 Wisconsin Act 200 and Act 201 on April 6, 2026, the state didn't just release long-delayed cleanup money; it fundamentally reset the liability and oversight landscape that any new industrial water user, including every hyperscale data center, now has to build into their planning from day one.  If you work with a town board, a developer, or a community group weighing a proposed data center, here's what actually changed, and why it matters more than it might first appear. What the new law does Act 200 and Act 201 together direct roughly $125 million toward PFAS remediation and grant programs, and hand over expanded authority...

[Artwork: Mandy Barker: Oceans. From Renoir to Microplastics. Museu Diocesa de Barcelona] I've spent a lot of the past few years writing about per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Lately, I've noticed how familiar the microplastics story is; it’s like watching the same movie with different actors. f you want a preview of where microplastics regulation is headed, PFAS is basically the trailer. Microplastics just made the federal watchlist for the first time On April 6, 2026, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a draft of the Sixth Contaminant Candidate List (CCL6). For the first time in the list's 30-year history, microplastics showed up as a priority contaminant group alongside PFAS, pharmaceuticals, and disinfection byproducts. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced it jointly with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which tells you this wasn't a quiet technical update - it was a coordinated federal signal. Public comment closed in June, ...

  ENVIRONMENTAL RISK INSIGHTS  ·  ISSUE 01 Environmental Risk is no longer a niche concern; it is reshaping how businesses operate, how regulators think, and how the rest of us make decisions — whether we realize it or not. April 2026   ·   8 min read   ·   Introductory Series Let’s start with an honest admission: “environmental risk” can sound like something that belongs in a dense actuarial report or a government white paper — not in a conversation you’d actually want to have. But here’s the reality - environmental risk is already embedded in your mortgage rate, your supply chain, your insurance premium, and your local city council’s planning decisions. It has been for years. We just haven’t always called it that. This blog exists to change these misconceptions. Over the coming issues, we’ll unpack the technical issues, translate the jargon, and provide you with the type of grounded, practical insight that assists you with making better d...