Concern is growing about a plan to bury up to 100,000 tons of PCB-contaminated river sludge, some from the Fox River, at a privately owned dumping ground near Eau Claire, officials said Thursday.
It’s a “not-in-my-backyard-type deal,” said Eau Claire County Administrator Tom McCarty. “We know they are dangerous. The county board chairman has personally come forward and said, `I don’t think it is a good idea.’ “
The county board has taken no formal action on the matter, but Chairman Howard Ludwigson has invited the area’s state legislators to a meeting next month to talk about the issue, McCarty said.
Sediments containing polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are scheduled for burial at a Superior Sevenmile Creek Inc. dump in the town of Seymour near Eau Claire.
Besides the emotional issue of accepting someone else’s garbage, some people in Eau Claire County worry about possible ground water contamination and the long-term safety of having PCBs buried nearby, McCarty said.
There is also worry that waste hauled from so far away–Green Bay is about 195 miles from Eau Claire–will use up capacity needed for local users, he said.
Alan Albee, general manager of the landfill, has said his company was confident the facility was “adequately designed to properly contain the material.”
