09-17-2004, 03:06 AM
Lower Fox River, Sheboygan River and Harbor PCB cleanups to begin
PCB removal on tap after decades of studies, planning
MADISON – The long-awaited cleanup of polychlorinated biphenyls will begin the week of Sept. 13 from two of Wisconsin’s worst PCB contamination sites, while work at third site moves into a critical phase during the same period.
Hydraulic dredging of PCB-contaminated sediment will begin in the [url http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/wm/lowerfox/]Lower Fox River[/url] at Little Lake Butte des Morts, a portion of the river that lies between Menasha and Appleton, and will continue over the next four to six years. Cleanup activities are also beginning near the Sheboygan River in Sheboygan and are moving into a new phase at the Hayton Millpond near New Holstein in Calumet County.
“This is the real deal. We're starting to move mud,” says Greg Hill, who leads the Department of Natural Resources contaminated sediment section. "After a lot of heavy lifting by a lot of people in getting enough information to show there's a solution to these problems, we're beginning the full-scale remediation projects to remove the source of fish consumption advisories in these waters.”
Polychlorinated biphenyls are a family of 209 related chemical compounds that were once widely used in electrical and hydraulic equipment, lubricants, and carbonless copy paper and other products. They were discharged in wastewater or leaked onto and into the ground and eventually entered the rivers. Their manufacture was banned in 1976 in the United States.
Infants and children of women who have eaten a lot of fish contaminated with PCBs may have lower birth weights and be delayed in physical development and learning. PCBs also may affect reproductive function and the immune system in humans and animals and are also associated with cancer risk.
Testing of fish for contaminants led to the discovery of PCB contamination in fish from the Lower Fox and the Sheboygan River in the late 1970s, which were eventually traced back to the paper mills and to the Tecumseh Products Co. engine manufacturing plant, respectively. The Hayton Millpond site was discovered in 1990, after tests revealed high PCB levels in fish from the South Branch of the Manitowoc River and subsequent investigation showed the contamination centralized in the backwaters of the Hayton Millpond and nearby farm fields. The cause of those contaminants is unknown, however, Tecumseh, which owns land next to the contaminated fields, has agreed to work with DNR to clean up the PCBs.
The state issued consumption advice to anglers and others urging them to strictly limit or eliminate the amount of some fish species they ate from the Lower Fox, the Sheboygan River, and the Hayton Millpond and associated waters. The state also launched investigations to determine where the contaminants were coming from, the extent of PCB contamination in water, fish sediment and soil; the parties responsible for pollution, and the best way to clean them up. The Lower Fox River, for example, has involved small-scale demonstration projects intended to determine the feasibility of certain cleanup technologies along the river.
Dredging begins this week on Little Lake Butte des Morts
The beginning of work on the Lower Fox River culminates more than a quarter century of investigations, planning and studies aimed at determining the extent of PCB contamination, who was responsible, and how best to tackle the problem.
This fall, contractors hired by the two companies responsible for the PCB contamination in Little Lake Butte des Morts are conducting full-scale, operational testing of the dredging equipment and the on-shore treatment facilities in preparation for full-scale operations that will begin as soon as the weather permits in 2005. The dredging operations will take place 24 hours a day, six days a week until the weather gets too cold, which is usually around mid-November.
The cleanup involves dredging contaminated sediment with a hydraulic dredge from the lake bottom and pumping it through a pipeline to the treatment facility located on the west shore of Little Lake Butte des Morts near the US 10/441 bridge. The pipeline will be on or near the surface of the water during operations and will be clearly marked with buoys. The sediment will be pumped into large plastic fabric mesh bags, called geotextile tubes, where the water will drain off the sediment. The water will be collected and treated at the water treatment plant located on the site before being returned to the river. After the sediment has dried in the tubes, it will be loaded into lined and covered dump trucks and transported to the disposal site.
Initially, the dredge and its pipeline will extend from the treatment plant about 2 miles upstream to the southwest corner of the lake. In early October, the dredge and pipeline will move to an area just north of the Menasha locks. In November, the dredge and pipeline will be relocated again to an area in the northern section of the lake.
This first phase of the cleanup is expected to cost $60 million, which two companies will fund. The overall cleanup is expected to significantly reduce or eliminate fish consumption advisories for PCBs from the affected stretches of the river and Green Bay.
A key element in the success of this project is the safety of boaters using the lake. As a part of this project, large, round orange buoys will be located every 150 feet along the floating section of the pipeline. Additional orange and white buoys will mark the general areas of the dredge and pipeline, and safety lights will be attached to the buoys to alert nighttime boaters. The safe areas for crossing the pipeline will be marked with lighted green and red buoys and boaters should cross the pipeline only at these channels.
Boating safety signs are posted at 11 public and private boat launches along Little Lake Butte des Morts and wallet-size safety cards are available at area bait shops, marinas, sporting goods stores and boating stores. Up-to-date information on the location of the dredge and pipeline and other current project information can be found at [url http://www.littlelakecleanup.com/]www.li...leanup.com[/url] or by calling (920) 912-5065.
Sheboygan River cleanup
Cleanup of contaminated soil and ground water at the former Tecumseh engine manufacturing plant in Sheboygan is expected to begin this week, with sediment removal work planned for the adjacent Sheboygan River next fall, according to Tom Wentland, the DNR project manager. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the lead agency in the cleanup, which the contractor expects to take seven years and will affect a 14-mile stretch of the river.
Tecumseh came forward and did some emergency removal of 4,300 cubic yards of the most highly contaminated sediment right near the plant site in 1989 and 1990, Wentland says. “This has been a long time in coming,” he says. “There’s been a lot of investigative work done, a lot of planning. But finally, we’re getting the remedy in place.
“The contractor onboard says the entire remedy will take seven years. The sooner, the better. Getting started is the hardest part.”
Hayton Millpond cleanup
Cleanup work at a third major contamination site -- Hayton Millpond near New Holstein in Calumet County -- enters a critical phase this week as removal proceeds down Jordan Creek and next week will shift to Pine Creek, which flows into Hayton. PCB levels along Jordan Creek are 200 to 1,000 times the target cleanup level, according to Jim Baumann, DNR’s project manager. Earlier phases removed contaminated sediments from the “source area,” floodplain areas where concentrations of the contaminant were highest.
There are several hundred sites along Wisconsin’s rivers and its Great Lakes coastline where chemical contaminants are buried in river or lake bottom mud. The contaminants are released into the water and are absorbed by fish and other aquatic creatures, and in turn, by the wildlife and humans that eat the fish.
Hill and other officials are calling on the federal government to provide the national clean up standards and funding they believe are necessary to help Wisconsin tackle other contaminated sediment sites more quickly.
The contaminants -- PCBs, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or PAHs, arsenic, mercury and other metals among them -- are the legacy of industrial and municipal development along those waters. PCBs are among the most problematic because they are slow to break down in the environment and accumulate in sediments at the bottom of the river and lakes.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Greg Hill (608) 267-9352, Sheboygan cleanup, Tom Wentland - (920) 892-8756; Hayton Millpond cleanup, Jim Baumann - (608) 266-9277
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PCB removal on tap after decades of studies, planning
MADISON – The long-awaited cleanup of polychlorinated biphenyls will begin the week of Sept. 13 from two of Wisconsin’s worst PCB contamination sites, while work at third site moves into a critical phase during the same period.
Hydraulic dredging of PCB-contaminated sediment will begin in the [url http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/wm/lowerfox/]Lower Fox River[/url] at Little Lake Butte des Morts, a portion of the river that lies between Menasha and Appleton, and will continue over the next four to six years. Cleanup activities are also beginning near the Sheboygan River in Sheboygan and are moving into a new phase at the Hayton Millpond near New Holstein in Calumet County.
“This is the real deal. We're starting to move mud,” says Greg Hill, who leads the Department of Natural Resources contaminated sediment section. "After a lot of heavy lifting by a lot of people in getting enough information to show there's a solution to these problems, we're beginning the full-scale remediation projects to remove the source of fish consumption advisories in these waters.”
Polychlorinated biphenyls are a family of 209 related chemical compounds that were once widely used in electrical and hydraulic equipment, lubricants, and carbonless copy paper and other products. They were discharged in wastewater or leaked onto and into the ground and eventually entered the rivers. Their manufacture was banned in 1976 in the United States.
Infants and children of women who have eaten a lot of fish contaminated with PCBs may have lower birth weights and be delayed in physical development and learning. PCBs also may affect reproductive function and the immune system in humans and animals and are also associated with cancer risk.
Testing of fish for contaminants led to the discovery of PCB contamination in fish from the Lower Fox and the Sheboygan River in the late 1970s, which were eventually traced back to the paper mills and to the Tecumseh Products Co. engine manufacturing plant, respectively. The Hayton Millpond site was discovered in 1990, after tests revealed high PCB levels in fish from the South Branch of the Manitowoc River and subsequent investigation showed the contamination centralized in the backwaters of the Hayton Millpond and nearby farm fields. The cause of those contaminants is unknown, however, Tecumseh, which owns land next to the contaminated fields, has agreed to work with DNR to clean up the PCBs.
The state issued consumption advice to anglers and others urging them to strictly limit or eliminate the amount of some fish species they ate from the Lower Fox, the Sheboygan River, and the Hayton Millpond and associated waters. The state also launched investigations to determine where the contaminants were coming from, the extent of PCB contamination in water, fish sediment and soil; the parties responsible for pollution, and the best way to clean them up. The Lower Fox River, for example, has involved small-scale demonstration projects intended to determine the feasibility of certain cleanup technologies along the river.
Dredging begins this week on Little Lake Butte des Morts
The beginning of work on the Lower Fox River culminates more than a quarter century of investigations, planning and studies aimed at determining the extent of PCB contamination, who was responsible, and how best to tackle the problem.
This fall, contractors hired by the two companies responsible for the PCB contamination in Little Lake Butte des Morts are conducting full-scale, operational testing of the dredging equipment and the on-shore treatment facilities in preparation for full-scale operations that will begin as soon as the weather permits in 2005. The dredging operations will take place 24 hours a day, six days a week until the weather gets too cold, which is usually around mid-November.
The cleanup involves dredging contaminated sediment with a hydraulic dredge from the lake bottom and pumping it through a pipeline to the treatment facility located on the west shore of Little Lake Butte des Morts near the US 10/441 bridge. The pipeline will be on or near the surface of the water during operations and will be clearly marked with buoys. The sediment will be pumped into large plastic fabric mesh bags, called geotextile tubes, where the water will drain off the sediment. The water will be collected and treated at the water treatment plant located on the site before being returned to the river. After the sediment has dried in the tubes, it will be loaded into lined and covered dump trucks and transported to the disposal site.
Initially, the dredge and its pipeline will extend from the treatment plant about 2 miles upstream to the southwest corner of the lake. In early October, the dredge and pipeline will move to an area just north of the Menasha locks. In November, the dredge and pipeline will be relocated again to an area in the northern section of the lake.
This first phase of the cleanup is expected to cost $60 million, which two companies will fund. The overall cleanup is expected to significantly reduce or eliminate fish consumption advisories for PCBs from the affected stretches of the river and Green Bay.
A key element in the success of this project is the safety of boaters using the lake. As a part of this project, large, round orange buoys will be located every 150 feet along the floating section of the pipeline. Additional orange and white buoys will mark the general areas of the dredge and pipeline, and safety lights will be attached to the buoys to alert nighttime boaters. The safe areas for crossing the pipeline will be marked with lighted green and red buoys and boaters should cross the pipeline only at these channels.
Boating safety signs are posted at 11 public and private boat launches along Little Lake Butte des Morts and wallet-size safety cards are available at area bait shops, marinas, sporting goods stores and boating stores. Up-to-date information on the location of the dredge and pipeline and other current project information can be found at [url http://www.littlelakecleanup.com/]www.li...leanup.com[/url] or by calling (920) 912-5065.
Sheboygan River cleanup
Cleanup of contaminated soil and ground water at the former Tecumseh engine manufacturing plant in Sheboygan is expected to begin this week, with sediment removal work planned for the adjacent Sheboygan River next fall, according to Tom Wentland, the DNR project manager. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the lead agency in the cleanup, which the contractor expects to take seven years and will affect a 14-mile stretch of the river.
Tecumseh came forward and did some emergency removal of 4,300 cubic yards of the most highly contaminated sediment right near the plant site in 1989 and 1990, Wentland says. “This has been a long time in coming,” he says. “There’s been a lot of investigative work done, a lot of planning. But finally, we’re getting the remedy in place.
“The contractor onboard says the entire remedy will take seven years. The sooner, the better. Getting started is the hardest part.”
Hayton Millpond cleanup
Cleanup work at a third major contamination site -- Hayton Millpond near New Holstein in Calumet County -- enters a critical phase this week as removal proceeds down Jordan Creek and next week will shift to Pine Creek, which flows into Hayton. PCB levels along Jordan Creek are 200 to 1,000 times the target cleanup level, according to Jim Baumann, DNR’s project manager. Earlier phases removed contaminated sediments from the “source area,” floodplain areas where concentrations of the contaminant were highest.
There are several hundred sites along Wisconsin’s rivers and its Great Lakes coastline where chemical contaminants are buried in river or lake bottom mud. The contaminants are released into the water and are absorbed by fish and other aquatic creatures, and in turn, by the wildlife and humans that eat the fish.
Hill and other officials are calling on the federal government to provide the national clean up standards and funding they believe are necessary to help Wisconsin tackle other contaminated sediment sites more quickly.
The contaminants -- PCBs, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or PAHs, arsenic, mercury and other metals among them -- are the legacy of industrial and municipal development along those waters. PCBs are among the most problematic because they are slow to break down in the environment and accumulate in sediments at the bottom of the river and lakes.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Greg Hill (608) 267-9352, Sheboygan cleanup, Tom Wentland - (920) 892-8756; Hayton Millpond cleanup, Jim Baumann - (608) 266-9277
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