The picturesque, woodsy area at the end of Company Lake Road in the town of Oconto Falls belies the true nature of an abandoned residence designated as an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup site.
Cleanup began July 27 at the former home and electronic waste recycling operation of Arthur and Ruth Ann Giese, 6509 County Road K. In October 2014, the Gieses were placed in the care of a guardian and now reside at an assisted living home.
A debris fire there two years ago set off warning alerts to local authorities when firefighters were unable to maneuver past the piles of waste to reach the fire at the 1-acre lot.
The state Department of Natural Resources conducting a site inspection in October 2014 discovered waste piles of damaged electronics, mostly televisions and computers, plus tires, containers with unknown contents, furniture, household waste and other debris.
Samples collected by the DNR from the numerous burn piles, ash piles and glass piles indicated the presence of hazardous waste, including lead, mercury and cadmium found to be migrating to the soil.
The property is bordered on three sides by wetlands, with Lily and Balcom lakes to the west, further necessitating remediation to keep the hazardous materials from the water supply.
Dave Alsteen, Oconto Falls town chairman, said he’s grateful the EPA took charge of the clean-up effort.
“We need it. I didn’t realize how much stuff was there,” he said.
A team from the Chicago office of Environmental Quality Management, of Cincinnati, Ohio, has the tedious job of dismantling the piles of debris and preparing it to be hauled away.
“It’s really a matter of hand-picking through all the piles, characterizing and segregating the waste into its waste stream,” said Kathy Halbur, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator.
EQM workers are sorting the debris into stacks of wood, electronics such as circuit boards and keyboards, metal scrap, plastics and garbage. Through an arrangement with Oconto County, the fully intact TVs, metal and other nonhazardous recyclables will go to Iron Horse in Gillett. The county will also pay for the garbage to be hauled away; the Oconto County Board last month approved the $6,5o0 expenditure for solid waste disposal.
“There’s some waste that is outside the scope (of the Superfund cleanup), which is just plain garbage that we want to remove, but we don’t want to leave big piles behind. So with this partnership, we’re really able to maximize resources and get a better clean-up,” Halbur said.
A guardianship is handling the property for the Gieses and plans to sell it. The home and three small buildings on the property have been condemned and are set to be demolished. The county hopes to recoup its $6,500 by placing it as a lien on the property.
Members of the Oconto County solid waste committee shared photos of the area at the County Board meeting July 23 and spoke convincingly of the county’s need to step up and help.
“It’s a total disaster. I’ve never seen anything like that,” Supervisor Ron Korzeniewski said.
“Everybody just shook their heads. They couldn’t believe the materials that were out there,” said Pat Virtues, head of the county’s planning, zoning and solid waste department.
Within the first three days of cleanup at the site, one Dumpster was filled. Once the crew gets to the hazardous waste area, the soil under the waste will be excavated and the area tested for contamination before clean material will be placed there. Halbur said equipment will be used to obtain real-time field results of the screening of the metals in the soil.
“We’ll be able to confirm we removed the lead-contaminated soil when we do the excavation,” she said.
The cleanup work was off to a good start last week, with favorable weather and no unwelcome surprises aside from a few snakes, Halbur said.
“It’s hard to tell when you take a snapshot,” she said, referring to her initial tour of the site in December. “Until you start digging in, you don’t know.”
The EPA set a removal allowance of $272,952 for the work done by EQM with an additional $50,000 for Tetra Tech, of Green Bay, for technical support. The project is expected to be completed by Friday or early next week.
