By Shereen Siewert
Years after neighborhood residents and advocates petitioned the city to clean up a Wausau park with documented contamination, remediation efforts have finally begun.
Soil is now being excavated from a contaminated portion of Riverside Park, which lies along the banks of the Wisconsin River, north of Thomas Street and east of First Avenue on the city’s west side.
“After many years of community concerns and efforts, not only will the remediation protect environment and health, it will also serve as a reminder that positive outcomes can indeed occur when regular citizens do not give up,” said Dist. 3 Alder Tom Kilian.
Kilian has spent years fighting for environmental cleanup. He is also a founding member of the grassroots environmental group, Citizens for a Clean Wausau.
In 2006, three surface soil samples were taken in the area: one from the culvert inlet, one from the culvert outlet and one from a residential property on River Street. The PACE laboratory report, prepared for the Friebert, Finerty & St. John law firm, was analyzed by the same laboratory used by both the city of Wausau and private residents for the Thomas Street corridor testing in 2018 and are part of court documents used in a 2008 lawsuit against entities associated with the former Crestline/SNE factory, which was located adjacent to the park property.
The results, obtained by Wausau Pilot and Review, showed dioxin levels exceeded state standards for eight dioxan/furans. In one case, for the dioxin PeCDD, the level was more than 14 times the residual contaminant level recommended by the EPA for non-industrial properties.
Despite DNR recommendations, Wausau for years rejected calls to retest the soil and cap the culvert. Requests for environmental testing and cleanup stretching as far back as 2017 led to stiff resistance from city officials who repeatedly discredited attorneys, scientists, engineers and residents who demanded further action. In a radio interview May 14 on WSAU, then-Mayor Rob Mielke, referring to the controversy, said “It gets frustrating when you have some of the rabble-rousers, and their innuendo, and out and out just dishonesty.”
Public Works Director Eric Lindman was equally vocal in his reaction to neighborhood residents, suggesting that the concerns were merely a scare tactic to stall a robust Thomas Street reconstruction project, which is now complete.
The area adjacent to the park has been subject to remediation efforts to remove toxic substances from the soil since the mid 1980s arising from the use of pentachlorophenol, or Penta, which was used for decades at the former SNE manufacturing plant. According to state documents, nearly 150,000 gallons of Penta have been removed from the ground since 1991.
“I thank the Wisconsin DNR and DHS for their involvement, and I also thank the residents of the Thomas Street and River Street neighborhood for their perseverance,” Kilian said. “Without all of these things, park remediation would probably not have occurred.”
