The U.S. EPA has detailed plans for how it plans to clean up contamination around Troy's aquifer and stop the pollution from spreading deeper.
U.S. EPA officials met with Troy residents this week to answer questions about its interim soil remediation plan at the East Troy Contaminated Aquifer Superfund site.
“The main reason why we're here tonight (is) we wanted everybody to have an opportunity to listen about the activities that are coming up,” said Adrian Palomeque, community involvement coordinator with the EPA.
In 2008, the U.S. EPA put the East Troy aquifer on the National Priorities List — also known as Superfund sites — to further investigate the degree and source of contamination.
This interim plan will be used on one of the two areas in East Troy containing VOC contamination. Some VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, are known to cause cancer and other health effects in exposed people.
The goal of the remediation is to prevent more leaching into local groundwater.
The plan is to remove contaminated soil and fill it with clean materials, and later restore the site using imported soil and placing asphalt near the intersection of North Clay and East Water streets. Site preparation will begin on May 19, with excavation expected to begin after Memorial Day.
This phase is expected to be finished in the fall, said Shari Kolak, EPA’s remedial project manager for the site.
“It's going to be a total of 60 days, if everything goes right. And we have weather, we have a lot of issues that we're going to have to deal with, but that's the best case scenario,” she said.
According to the agency, an average of 13 truckloads of polluted soil will be shipped out each day. That’ll amount to nearly 6,000 tons of soil taken out.
Local residents who attended asked if they'll be affected by the cleanup.
“On the airborne stuff, do I have to worry? Because I have a pool in my backyard, I'm right there on Water Street two houses away. Do we have to worry about us being out in the pool, swimming, my grandkids?” asked resident Julia Karnham.
“I'm just wondering, should I not be drinking my water?” asked resident Julia Lutz.
Crews will monitor to ensure air quality isn’t affected, Kolak said, and they’ll use preventative measures also.
“We're going to have the water tanks, and (those are) going to be used for dust suppression so that as we're excavating, they're not generating all this dust that we don’t want getting airborne,” she said.
People living in Troy are connected to a public water supply, which Palomeque said is currently unaffected by this contamination.
“The information we have is that all that water that's being distributed in the area, it's treated through the facility, so that's regularly tested, so there are no issues, anything indicated with drinking water,” he said.
Public drinking water wells near the pollution have been decommissioned.
Environmental contractors will also begin assessing the effectiveness of a chemical called permanganate to reduce VOCs in groundwater at the site. The study is slated to begin in June and expected to last until the end of summer.
The use of permanganate isn’t new, Palomeque said.
“They're just trying to see if permanganate would be a good agent that could be used locally that would work well in this specific case. But it has been used in the past,” he said.
The entire remediation process is far from over, Palomeque said, but they’ll be taking it one step at a time.
“It's just kind of the process to make sure that the sources are properly addressed and then (there’s) the overall design for the whole site itself,” he said. “But there's a lot of work being done now and that's what we're excited about, letting everybody know what's taking place right now.”
