Where do they haul all that dirt?

Pioneer Press Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:59:06 -0700
New Brighton / As cleanup starts, plan in limbo

Things are a little backward in New Brighton these days.Last Wednesday, as environmental contractors prepared to clean up a polluted area so homes could be built, the homebuilder split, literally towing its sales trailer out of town. Welcome to the trying times of the biggest development in the north suburb's history. ... Transforming the land, which once housed stockyards and refineries, into a mix of office, retail and homes has been the vision of New Brighton leaders for more than two decades. Plans call for offices and small retail east of Old Highway 8, and homes, offices and parks to the west, taking advantage of the site's back yard: Long Lake Regional Park. But pollution always has been a major hurdle. The land west of Old Highway 8 is under the influence of three federal- and state-recognized Superfund sites: a former chemical solvent plant, a 1940s-era petroleum refinery and the massive plume of pollutants that flowed underground from the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant in Arden Hills. In addition, officials identified five petroleum hot spots and three other areas containing pollutants that will need to be fully excavated before homes can be built. The city's solution, approved by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, is to dig up the polluted soil where the homes would go and haul it away to a landfill designed to handle such material. In a 10-acre portion designated as park space, pollutants will remain, sealed beneath a roughly 4-foot layer of fresh topsoil. It's not clear what the source of each polluted spot is. The city purchased much of the land from Midwest Asphalt - which operated an asphalt plant atop the former Northwest Refinery Superfund site - without looking at the soil beneath it, another action that has drawn criticism.

[[keywords: LandUse;Housing;Metro;]]