WPSC Stevens Point MGP Site

March 2009

In summer 2008, visitors to Pfiffner Pioneer Park or downtown Stevens Point may have noticed sampling teams in the Wisconsin River, in a small pond in the park, and on or near the former Manufactured Gas Plant site by the park. Workers sampled river sediment, soil, and ground water. Sampling was done by the end of last fall. The results will be available in a formal document called the remedial investigation report which will have detailed information. It will be available here and in the Charles M. White Library later this year.

This sampling event followed up on another done in 2007 and complemented cleanup work that was done in 1998. This included an upland cleanup that involved excavation and thermal (heated) treatment of about 16,400 tons of highly contaminated soil at the site and adjacent park. A clean soil cover was placed over the area. The 2007 investigations focused on areas not included in the 1998 cleanup. Under Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources oversight, various investigations had been done since the 1990s.

Details about the previous cleanup and other planned investigations can be found in the technical documents posted below and at the Charles M. White Library. Early results from the 2007 sampling indicate that the soil in the park and nearby areas is generally clean. Deep soil in a filled-in slough (a low area filled with mud and water connected to a larger body of water) contains tar which most likely came from the former gas plant. Ground water is also contaminated with MGP-related pollutants. The contamination is not an immediate concern because it is buried and nobody is drinking the ground water.

Plans for this work began after a legal agreement called a consent order was signed between WPSC and EPA in May 2006. This agreement allows for further investigation by WPSC, with EPA oversight, to determine how much contamination may remain.

The agreement also includes five other MGP sites in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Marinette, Oshkosh, and Two Rivers, Wisconsin. A separate agreement for another site, WPSC Campmarina MGP in Sheboygan, was signed between WPSC and EPA in January 2007.