Posted on August 29, 2016
By Baihly Warfield, 10/13 abc
The wet dredge pilot project that has been going on on the Ashland shoreline since April will continue through November.
Northern States Power Company-Wisconsin is working to clean up contaminated sediment along the shore from previous industries. They began dredging a portion of the contaminated area to see how it went and make improvements before doing a full dredge.
The Environmental Protection Agency and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources authorized the project.
EPA Project Manager Scott Hansen said crews had to clear thick wood debris before they could even reach the actual lake sediment.
“There was a lot of wood waste from there a wood manufacturer years ago too,” Hansen said.
Excavators with special closed buckets remove the waste from the lake and place it in trucks. It’s then brought to a large tent nearby and eventually transported to a landfill.
After assessing progress and taking another look at goals, the EPA and Wisconsin DNR made the decision to extend the work to the area adjacent to the pilot’s perimeters.
“The preliminary results actually showed that the results were … better than the performance standards,” Hansen said.
There was some minor damage after the summer storms northern Wisconsin has experienced this summer, but not enough to delay the work. With that, project managers are taking a look at what can continue to be improved to make the project more efficient and moving ahead.
“If we’re going to go full-scale, full dredge next spring, they wanted to do a lessons learned,” Hansen said.
The average person driving by won’t notice a difference in scale of the project, but the stink might alert them.
“It’s not a health issue, but you can smell it as soon as you start digging stuff up,” Hansen said. “We wanted to let people know we are moving on to the extended area, so if they start smelling stuff, that’s the reason why.”
The second phase is expected to be completed by November. There is still a possibility of more work next year as well.
Source: 10/13 abc
