By Shereen Siewert
Wausau officials this week will review a consultant’s recommendation to excavate significant amounts of soil from a west side park after testing showed multiple areas of contamination and associated cancer risks in the area.
The report, from REI, will be reviewed Monday by the city’s Parks and Recreation Committee. REI performed the testing in Riverside Park, which came after years of wrangling and resistance by some city officials.
Nearly 1/3 of samples tested showed contamination in excess of Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources non-industrial standards, according to city documents. In one sample, dioxin concentration was nearly four times the state standard for residential settings. That sample, taken at the base of the hill in Riverside Park, is not located in the woods or brush but instead is located in the open at the westernmost edge of the park’s grassy area where families and children play. Several samples with higher levels of contamination are adjacent to nearby homes.
Residents and environmental advocates have been urging the city and DNR to act since test results from 2006 surfaced in January 2018, more than a decade after those tests pointed to high levels of hazardous substances in park soils.
Tests were sent to DNR officials in 2008, then forwarded to the Marathon County Health Department. No action was ever taken to remediate the soil, and most residents were unaware of the testing until they were reported in 2018. Though the grassroots environmental group, Citizens for a Clean Wausau, advocated for testing repeatedly, their concerns were often ignored, criticized as “scare tactics” or otherwise discredited.
Dist. 3 Alder Tom Kilian, who was a founding member of Citizens for Clean Wausau and spent years battling city officials on the remediation issue before he was elected to represent the neighborhood, said in a statement last week that the city has lost trust with citizens because of its past response to contamination issues.
“In relation to community concerns about contamination related to our drinking water, Riverside Park, or part of the former Connor property on Cleveland Avenue, residents were met with dismissiveness, minimization of the issues, and sometimes even name calling by certain camps at City Hall,” Kilian said. “Notably, all three of those community concerns were later validated by facts in ways that directly refuted the City’s opposing positions. Moving forward, the citizenry should demand that the proposed Riverside Park soil excavation be allowed to occur unimpeded this summer, and that Cleveland Avenue be cleaned up stringently to non-industrial standards.”
In his report, Matt Michalski, a representative from REI, recommends removing about 13,000 square feet of land to a depth of about a foot below the surface. in addition, two areas within that portion will need additional excavation to reach between three and four feet below, totaling about 3,000 square feet of soil. That, Michalski wrote, would remove the entire direct contact zone in those locations.
Testing identified significant contamination below a culvert that empties into the park and neighbors an area that once housed a cold storage building at the former SNE plant. One area of the cold storage building was used as a “drum accumulation area” for hazardous waste.
Citizens for a Clean Wausau last week submitted a letter to the DNR supporting the REI report that urges the agency to require dust-control measures during the excavation process and decline to allow the culvert to be replaced.
“It appears that historically the culvert likely played a role in transporting contaminated storm water into the park and…it is unclear why the culvert would be replaced or reinstalled after this excavation occurs,” the letter states.
Once REI’s recommendations are approved by the DNR the city will bid out the work for any remediation necessary, city documents state. Soils excavated as part of the site remediation will be transported to the Marathon County Landfill for disposal, a process that will require further testing and approval. If the material does not pass the protocol requirements, the landfill will not accept the material as a solid waste. This would require the material to be shipped to a hazardous waste landfill, which could accept the material, or further examine other remedial options.
The total project cost is so far unclear and depends largely on the results of the bidding process, but will include up to $50,000 in disposal fees, confirmation soil sampling fees of up to roughly $31,000 and additional fees of up to $17,000, the report states.
Public Works Director Eric Lindman did not respond to a request for comment submitted last week on this issue.
