Board endorses Sheboygan River cleanup

SHEBOYGAN — The County Board overwhelmingly endorsed the effort to speed up and complete the cleanup of contaminated sediment in the Sheboygan River Tuesday.

However, one part of the three-pronged effort to eliminate PCB-contaminated soil from the stretch of the river from Sheboygan Falls to Lake Michigan — seeking potential buyers for the county-owned Bock property in the town of Wilson — had much rougher sailing through the board.

By unanimous votes, the board authorized negotiations to use vacant county-owned land on the University of Wisconsin-Sheboy-gan campus adjacent to the Sheboygan River as a ‘dewatering site’ for the remediation effort and endorsed the effort to clean up the river.

The board split, however, on seeking potential buyers for the 200-acre parcel on Stahl Road and County A, which the county purchased in the early 1980s as a potential landfill site.

Pollution Risk Services, the company that will be performing the remediation work, has expressed interest in utilizing the Bock property as a repository for clean soil from the river dredging.

That proposal came under fire from town of Wilson officials and residents, despite assurances from county and PRS officials that the soil would be clean and free of contaminants and would not reduce the agricultural viability of the land.

Supervisor George Marthenze moved to file the resolution seeking proposals to purchase the Bock property. He cited opposition to the proposal raised at the meeting the previous night of the Wilson Town Board.

“What I came away from that meeting with is that the Town Board and the town of Wilson is not in any way, shape or form in favor of having several thousand pounds of PCB-laden muck landing on their town,” Marthenze stated.

“If we or any buyer went there (looking for rezoning), it would be what we call a slam dunk — meaning it would wind up in the garbage can,” he continued.

County Administrator Adam Payne responded that, if PRS should buy the property, it would use only 25 of the 200 acres to deposit soil. Supervisor Keith Abler emphasized that any soil that would be placed on the Bock property would not be contaminated.

Marthenze also pointed out that the county receives about $16,000 a year in rent for the property, which is currently being farmed. Selling the land might earn the county roughly a quarter-million dollars and put it back on the tax rolls, but Marthenze said it was his estimate that the tax revenue to the county would be only $245 a year, much less than the annual rental payment.

Supervisor Alan Bosman, who represents the district that includes the Bock property, told the board he has received calls from many of his constituents opposing the sale. “Everything they’ve worked on in their Smart Growth plan states that this should be A-1 agricultural land,” he explained.

Supervisor Richard Bemis cautioned his colleagues that, while the county has never developed the property as landfill under the original plan, it might find a need to at some future point. “This is still our ace in the hole,” he commented.

Supervisor Mick Anic responded that the county is only seeking proposals to purchase and any purchaser would still have to comply with local and state rules and regulations. “Let’s let the process continue and find out what the property is worth,” he urged.

That brought an objection from Supervisor Devin LeMahieu, who noted that the resolution gave authority to three board committees — Executive; Finance; and Planning, Resources, Agriculture and Extension — to negotiate and complete a sale, not the entire board.

The board split evenly, 17-17, on Marthenze’s motion to file the resolution, which meant the motion failed.

Supervisor Michael Ogea then moved to amend the resolution to require full County Board approval before the property could be sold. That amendment passed by a vote of 33-1, with Bosman casting the only no vote.

The amended resolution then passed by a vote of 21-13.

Earlier, county Planning and Resources Director Jim Hulbert detailed the history of the contamination in the river and outlined efforts to clean it up.

The polychlorinated biphenyls found in the river sediment came from three sources, he explained — Tecumseh Industries in Sheboygan Falls, the Kohler Co. in Kohler and Thomas Industries in Sheboygan. The PCBs — which have been identified as a health risk, especially for pregnant women — were identified in the 1970s and the river was declared a Superfund site in 1986.

Years of negotiation and litigation followed, with Tecumseh in 2004 agreeing to a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Agency. Under the agreement, Tecumseh transferred its former manufacturing site in Sheboygan Falls to PRS for the cleanup effort.

While PRS and the federal government will pay much of the cleanup cost, Hulbert said the county and local governments must pay some of the cost as well.

The county is looking to accomplish as much of that as possible through in-kind services, such as the use of the UW-S property to drain dredged contaminated soils before it is hauled away to a storage site in upper Michigan. The county will also take the lead in seeking grants and other funds to cover some of the costs.

“We have an opportunity to leave the Sheboygan River and harbor better than we found them and it’s absolutely critical we do it right the first time,” Payne said in urging adoption of the river cleanup resolutions. “We can improve economic opportunities for this area as well as improve the health and welfare of this area.”

“If we clean up this river, we can bring in more business,” added Supervisor Brian Hoffmann.