Shereen Siewert & Damakant Jayshi
Remediation for Riverside Park in Wausau will see yet another delay in the bidding process, city officials said Monday.
In December, city officials said bidding for the cleanup would happen in January or February. But this week Parks Director Jamie Polley, briefing the Wausau Parks and Recreation Committee with an update from Public Works Director Eric Lindman, said the process won’t begin until spring.
Dist. 3 Alder Tom Kilian, who has repeatedly pushed for swifter action on the park remediation plan, reminded Polley of the latest update and questioned the new time frame. “This has been going on for quite some time,” he said.
“Yes, that is what I gathered from Mr. Lindman and his conversations with REI,” Polley said.
The plan, being spearheaded by REI and subject to approval by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, has been plagued by repeated delays for reasons that are so far unclear. Neighborhood residents and other community members have pushed for years for the park’s documented environmental contamination to be cleaned up but met repeated resistance from city officials who insisted the park was safe for public use.
Testing was performed in September 2020 at the park, at 100 Sherman St., Wausau, to define the extent of contamination in the area after previous test results from months prior showed multiple exceedances of state Department of Natural Resources soil standards.
Several tests showed exceedances of DNR standards, but 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. Spots with several samples with higher levels of contamination are adjacent to nearby homes.
The city’s April 2020 environmental testing also revealed concentrations of dioxin and furan that exceed the DNR’s not-to-exceed direct contact limits for a non-industrial setting. Based on the city’s initial analysis, concentrations of one dioxin and one furan were more than double state soil limits for a non-industrial setting. Then, multiple exceedances were identified 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.
The latest DPW update said the area of needed remediation has been fully delineated, both vertically and horizontally. The cleanup work includes clearing and grubbing of all trees and brush within the delineated area, removing contaminated soil to the landfill in Marathon County, and using clean fill for backfilling and landscaping, among others. Once the plan is approved by the DNR, the Wausau Finance Committee and the Common Council need to approve a budget modification for the purpose.
The remediation plan for the contamination in the park has dragged, with the Department of Public Works citing a variety of reasons for the slow pace. Last month, Lindman said they were awaiting test results of the soil samples taken from the park in November and that additional samples need to be collected. In August last year, the Public Works director wrote in an update to the committee that the bidding would occur by the end of the year. That deadline, along with a subsequent date, was missed.
“As long as the area is defined with the latest round of sampling then the project should be able to be bid in Jan/Feb 2023,” the Dec. 5 updated noted.
