Seven years after contaminated land and lake bottom on Ashland’s waterfront was listed as a federal Superfund site, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to order a plan for cleanup.
Agency officials earlier had set an Oct. 1 target for a “record of decision” outlining the final cleanup plan for the 30-acre site. In late September, Scott Hansen, EPA’s remedial project manager, confirmed the federal agency has pushed that decision into October, but wouldn’t disclose a new target date.
The record of decision is a major event, but won’t commence the cleanup. Next, EPA will name responsible parties, then negotiate consent decrees.
Eau Claire-based Northern States Power-Wisconsin expects to be named, and the city of Ashland also could be added to the responsible party list. Then, actual cleanup can begin, a process likely to take several more years.
Cooperating with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the subsidiary of Denver-based Xcel Energy began pumping ground water from wells at its Ashland service center in 2000 as a pilot project. The Xcel property is on a bluff that overlooks the waterfront.
By mid-2009, it had collected and treated about 1.7 million gallons of water, removing about 10,000 gallons of coal tar before discharging the effluent into the city’s sewer system. In 2002, Xcel dug out contaminated soil and waste at a seepage point at the base of the bluff, removed a discharge pipe laid to the waterfront decades ago, and covered the site with clean fill.
The history
Xcel doesn’t dispute that an NSP-Wisconsin predecessor company, a manufactured gas plant that produced “water gas” from coal for street and home lighting in Ashland between 1885 and 1947, contributed to the contamination at the site. Remnants of that gas plant remain at the service center.
Below the bluff in the city’s Kreher Park recreation area is a closed wastewater treatment plant. The waterfront itself appears pristine, except for the signs that warn of the toxic mix below that has oozed over time into lake bottom sediments as far as 300 feet from the shore.
Tarry, oily liquid wastes from gas production — a mixture of hundreds of chemical compounds including benzene and naphthalene — found their way into Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay through that long-filled ravine.
The contamination area includes the Xcel service center, Kreher Park and about 16 acres of lake bottom between the Prentice Avenue public boat launch and the city’s marina.
Agency officials earlier had set an Oct. 1 target for a “record of decision” outlining the final cleanup plan for the 30-acre site. In late September, Scott Hansen, EPA’s remedial project manager, confirmed the federal agency has pushed that decision into October, but wouldn’t disclose a new target date.
The record of decision is a major event, but won’t commence the cleanup. Next, EPA will name responsible parties, then negotiate consent decrees.
Eau Claire-based Northern States Power-Wisconsin expects to be named, and the city of Ashland also could be added to the responsible party list. Then, actual cleanup can begin, a process likely to take several more years.
Cooperating with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the subsidiary of Denver-based Xcel Energy began pumping ground water from wells at its Ashland service center in 2000 as a pilot project. The Xcel property is on a bluff that overlooks the waterfront.
By mid-2009, it had collected and treated about 1.7 million gallons of water, removing about 10,000 gallons of coal tar before discharging the effluent into the city’s sewer system. In 2002, Xcel dug out contaminated soil and waste at a seepage point at the base of the bluff, removed a discharge pipe laid to the waterfront decades ago, and covered the site with clean fill.
The history
Xcel doesn’t dispute that an NSP-Wisconsin predecessor company, a manufactured gas plant that produced “water gas” from coal for street and home lighting in Ashland between 1885 and 1947, contributed to the contamination at the site. Remnants of that gas plant remain at the service center.
Below the bluff in the city’s Kreher Park recreation area is a closed wastewater treatment plant. The waterfront itself appears pristine, except for the signs that warn of the toxic mix below that has oozed over time into lake bottom sediments as far as 300 feet from the shore.
Tarry, oily liquid wastes from gas production — a mixture of hundreds of chemical compounds including benzene and naphthalene — found their way into Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay through that long-filled ravine.
The contamination area includes the Xcel service center, Kreher Park and about 16 acres of lake bottom between the Prentice Avenue public boat launch and the city’s marina.
