EPA unveils timetable to clean up River Raisin

EPA unveils timetable to clean up River Raisin

■ A three-phase project beginning this fall and ending late next year aims to remove industrial toxins that pose threats to fish, animals and people.

BY CHARLES SLAT

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Some of the most potent pockets of poisons remain¬ing in the River Raisin will be cleaned out this fall as part of a larger plan to scour toxins in the riverbed down¬stream of the Winchester St. bridge.

That’s the tentative time¬table federal Environmental Protection Agency officials outlined Thursday during a meeting of the city’s Com¬mittee on the Environment and Water Quality.

Scott Cieniawski, an EPA project engineer, said the most recent sampling of the river still showed some ar¬eas with concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) of more than 50 parts per million — a level consid¬ered hazardous — despite a series of clean-up efforts dat¬ing back to 1997.

PCBs, a now-banned com¬pound once widely used as an insulator and fire retar¬dant, is known to cause can¬cer. Concerns are that it ac¬cumulates in the fatty tissue of fish, which then are eaten by people. The chemical is believed to have gotten into the river through a history of discharges from industry.

“Upstream of the turning basin, things are looking pretty good,” Mr. Cieniawski said. “Pretty much from the turning basin downstream is where we saw the prob¬lems.”

The current clean-up ef¬fort will consist of three distinct parts — dredging and dewatering of sediment showing the highest con¬centrations and disposal in a hazardous waste landfill; dredging of sediment with lesser concentrations not considered toxic and dis¬posal in an Army Corps of Engineers’ dredge disposal area at Sterling State Park; and dredging below the nav¬igation channel near the center of the river in con¬junction with routine fed¬eral dredging to maintain channel depths.

A mechanical dredge would remove an estimat¬ed 4,000 cubic yards of the most-tainted sediment, possibly starting in mid-October. It would be dewa¬tered and blended with a stabilizing agent before be¬ing trucked to a landfill. It would take about 400 truck trips to get the sediment out of town.

“We anticipate it’s going to be two to three weeks of actual dredging with a cou¬ple of weeks of mobiliza¬tion on the front side,” Mr. Cieniawski said. The work is expected to be completed in early December.

A tentative public hear¬ing and explanation of the process is planned for mid-July.

Dredging of sediment with lesser concentrations of PCBs could begin in June, 2011, and be completed by September of that year.

That dredging would have to be mid-June or after so as not to disturb amorous eagles. “Historically, there have been nesting bald ea¬gles on the river where we would be doing our work,” Mr. Cieniawski said.

About 95,000 cubic yards would be piped to the dis¬posal area at the state park. Another 30,000 cubic yards under the navigation channel would be removed through dredging complet¬ed in November.

Rough cost estimates are the work might cost $15 mil¬lion, paid with a combina¬tion of federal Great Lakes Legacy Act money and Clean Michigan Initiative dollars.

When all the work is done, it is hoped that part of the river would be the first tak¬en off the federal list of 14 “areas of concern” in Mich¬igan where pollution poses the greatest environmental risks.

“Some of us have been waiting for a long time on this,” said Daniel Stefanski, a COTE member and Mon¬roe County Drain Commis¬sioner. “We definitely want to be one of the success sto¬ries for delisting.”