Onalaska residents are scheduled to gather at a town meeting Monday to talk about opening their pocket books in an effort to clean contaminated ground water.
With a lawsuit hanging over their heads, the residents of the Town of Onalaska are being asked to approve paying $500,000 toward the estimated $12 million cleanup costs at the Brice Prairie landfill, where industrial wastes leaked into the water table.
The landfill is on the federal Superfund list of toxic waste sites.
A treatment plant already has been built on the former dump, pumping contaminated water from the ground and letting toxic compounds in the water evaporate into the air.
Under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, besides paying $500,000 in cash the town would contribute $165,000 in services to the cleanup effort. The services could include having town crews mow the grass above the clay cap that now seals the landfill.
