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Agency Adds Esko, Hibbing Sites to Minnesota's Superfund List

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 June 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.

Jun. 7--The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is proposing adding two new Northland contaminated sites to the state's official Superfund list.

The additions include the Esko Ground Water Plume, where shallow groundwater beneath the Esko Post Office and surrounding parking lots is contaminated withtetrachloroethene. Nearby drinking wells also are polluted.

It's not clear what can be done to clean the problem up, but it's higher on the state's list because the contamination is moving through the groundwater off the site and is spreading deeper into the underlying aquifer.

Esko has no public water supply and the community depends on private wells.

Also being added to the state list is the Hibbing Gas Manufacturing Site. The soil and groundwater at the intersection of U.S. Highway 169 and First Avenue in Hibbing are contaminated with coal tar, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, cyanide and other metals.

The additions are among five sites statewide being added to the list, and one removal, bringing the total to 78 state Superfund sites.

For more information or to comment on the additions, call Gary Krueger at the MPCA at (651) 296-6139.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth, Minn.)

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