Four Minnesota cities get state money to study petroleum leak sites

BRAINERD — 4 Minnesota cities are receiving state funding to investigate whether or not leaded gasoline from leaking storage tanks is placing their ingesting water in danger.

The Legislature accredited $200,000 to analyze petroleum leak websites in Paynesville, Alexandria, Foley and Blaine.

The extra examine comes within the wake of a former Minnesota Air pollution Management Company worker submitting a whistleblower lawsuit final 12 months in opposition to his former employer.

Mark Toso raised questions in regards to the state’s petroleum remediation program the place he’d labored as a hydrologist for a decade, and whether or not it was doing sufficient to forestall leaded gasoline from contaminating groundwater.

Toso’s lawsuit continues to be pending. In the meantime, state lawmakers approved $200,000 for Paynesville to take the lead in hiring a marketing consultant to investigate the extent of leaded gasoline contamination and the risk it poses to every metropolis’s ingesting water provide.

Paynesville Mayor Shawn Reinke referred to as the funding “excellent news for town.” He stated the extra evaluation will assist reply lingering questions metropolis officers have in regards to the web site.

“That is only a examine, simply an evaluation, to see if extra soil elimination could be useful and value efficient,” Reinke stated.

The Paynesville contamination, from underground tanks at a former service station, was first found within the Nineteen Eighties. Chemical substances from the petroleum leached into the groundwater and compelled town two shut two of its wells. The MPCA changed the wells.

Metropolis officers urged the MPCA to excavate the positioning and take away the contaminated soil, which the company resisted. In 2015, the Legislature appropriated as much as $2.5 million for a therapy system to take away chemical substances from town’s water.

Town lately had its water provide independently examined and located it’s protected to drink, Reinke stated.

“We did that simply out of an abundance of warning, figuring out that there could be some eyebrows raised with the allegations of the lawsuit,” he stated.

Nevertheless, the MPCA doesn’t agree that extra examine is required.

The company is monitoring the Paynesville web site and is assured the plume is not transferring or contaminating town’s ingesting water, stated Jamie Wallerstedt, the MPCA’s remediation division director.

About 1,500 cubic yards of contaminated soil was faraway from the Paynesville web site in 1990. Observe-up research discovered that it wasn’t possible or essential to take extra soil out of the bottom, Wallerstedt stated.

Early warning detection monitoring wells between the petroleum web site and Paynesville’s ingesting water system would alert the company if the contamination plume was getting shut, Wallerstedt stated.

“We monitor that intently,” she stated. “The contamination is steady, and it isn’t transferring within the path of town’s ingesting water.”

The identical is true for the petroleum leak websites within the different three cities, she stated.

Wallerstedt stated the MPCA is keen to evaluate the marketing consultant’s info and suggestions and contemplate whether or not a change of plan is required. Nevertheless, she added, “Cleansing up past what’s needed does include a value.”

In February, the Workplace of the Legislative Auditor launched an analysis of the petroleum remediation program that referred to as for higher regulation and oversight of consultants employed to work at petroleum launch websites.

It additionally stated when contemplating deal with a launch, the company doesn’t contemplate how a property could be used sooner or later.

Wallerstedt stated the MPCA is taking steps to deal with the suggestions within the report, together with bettering the way it tracks and displays low-risk leaks. She stated the standard of contractors does have an effect on the company’s dealing with of leak websites.

“We do stand by that the selections made at our websites are sound, they usually shield the well being of Minnesotans,” she stated.