$1.1 Million PCB Cleanup Ends <> Rain Had Delayed Lincoln Park Project
By LEE BERGQUIST
Sediments that were laced with contaminated chemicals from the city’s industrial past have been removed from the Milwaukee River in Lincoln Park.
The $1.1 million project in front of the Blatz Pavilion was completed July 19, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
The cleanup of more than one acre of riverbed is the first step in a larger project estimated to cost up to $36 million that will remove polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from parts of the river ranging from the Estabrook Dam north to W. Silver Spring Drive.
After drawing down a section of the river that exposed the sediments, crews scooped out 5,000 cubic yards of river bottom, some of it 4 feet deep.
Some of the sediments were sent to the Emerald Park landfill in Muskego; the most-contaminated sediments were trucked to a landfill near Detroit.
The project was slated for completion last fall and then by May. But heavy rains in April and June caused delays, said Ted Bosch, a basin engineer with the DNR.
The Blatz cleanup coincides with Milwaukee County’s plans for an $8.4 million aquatic center in Lincoln Park and renovating the Blatz Pavilion, which sits on a bay in the river.
“The whole area is really going to pop when this is done,” said Sue Black, county parks director. “Next summer, everything in that area is going to look very different.”
The Blatz bay is cleaner, but officials are not expecting it to become the venue for swimming it once was.
The area is used for fishing, however. Signs in English, Spanish and Hmong advise the public of the presence of PCBs and recommend restricting consumption of fish from the river. Some species, such as carp, should not be eaten all, the DNR says.
PCBs are believed to have come from industrial facilities in the Lincoln Creek watershed in the city. PCBs are a group of chemicals that were used in the United States between 1930 and 1979 as lubricants, coolants and in electrical equipment. They were outlawed because of evidence of damage they cause to the environment and the health risks they pose to humans.
Work on the rest of the project will not start for a year or two.
The Blatz project was viewed as a template for work on the rest of the polluted sections of the river, said Marsha B. Burzynski, a water resources management specialist for the DNR.
She said funding would come from state and federal dollars. State officials have already allocated $17 million in state bonding authority for the rest of the project.
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