We recently submitted a Site Investigation Report to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). It has been reviewed by DNR staff and published on the DNR web site.
The Site Investigation Report serves the primary purpose of updating the DNR and all interested parties on initial results from the “Revised Site Investigation Work Plan” which was approved by the DNR on April 27, 2018. The Site Investigation Report includes results from boring samples, aquifer profiling, soil samples and soil logging, groundwater monitoring and surface water testing. The report includes data from the investigation activities through August 29, 2018. Additional activities identified in the Work Plan are continuing and those activities and data will be included in a future report. All investigation activities were conducted under the oversight and approval of the DNR.
As a result of this additional activity, PFAS has been detected in groundwater at levels above the HAL in two of the vertical aquifer profile samples further south in the study area. We will be conducting further investigations of these detections in groundwater. This groundwater sampling will help to better evaluate the data set in the south, as these results are not consistent with other data. We are working closely with the DNR on the additional investigations and to better understand this data. Additionally, we will begin testing private drinking water wells near Rader Road.
Also included in the Site Investigation Report is the summary of the data collected on the water samples from ditches in the general area. As a result of those studies, we identified two ditches where we will employ interim measures to address the PFAS detected. We focused our efforts to determine the pathways of these compounds entering the ditches and to identify the most appropriate interim measures to address PFAS in the ditches. One of the ditches flows through our property at the Fire Technology Center (Ditch A) and the other ditch crosses West Bay Shore Street and runs through Runnoe Park (Ditch B). We have been working closely with the DNR and the County to obtain approval for work plans, locations and necessary permits to remove the compounds from the water that is flowing through the ditches. All work is being conducted under the oversight and approval of the DNR.
We want to emphasize that these ditches do not carry drinking water. They carry surface water, and the US-EPA health advisories are based on exposure from long term drinking water ingestion, not from dermal (skin) contact with the water.
We will keep the community, as well as interested parties, informed of our progress in finalizing these interim action steps.
