To help fund the new TCF Bank stadium that the University of Minnesota is building on their campus, they are planning on selling off parts of the UMore lands which hosts numerous highly contaminated sites. Following a visit to the abandoned Gopher Ordnance/Munitions site with Aaron back in August of 2006, there has been some discussion, in the comments of my post, about what the University is doing to clean up the contaminants before they sell off the land.

A recent commenter mentioned that the third 5th year report by the EPA (PDF), completed in June of 2007, cleared portions of the property as safe. I couldn’t resist taking a look at the report to see exactly what the EPA had to say about the cleanup efforts. I admit that I am no professional nor do I have a background in environmental issues, hazardous waste or clean-up efforts of Superfund sites but looking at the EPA report from 2007 and comparing it to the data available from Dakota County Environmental Management Department from 2005 (see here for PDF or here for HTML via Google cache), I found some glaring differences between the two. The University of Minnesota is fully aware of these issues and mentions in a November 2004 report (available here in PDF) that some areas should not be developed due to the contaminants present.

Now, the EPA report concentrates on only five areas whereas the Dakota County report concentrates on numerous others including the “Burning Grounds”, Oleum Plant, Nitric Acid Plant, Ash Pond, Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the Primary Settling Basin. I can only assume that the EPA is only concerned with the Superfund areas but it concerns me that the general public, like the commenter I mentioned above, believes the area to be mostly safe because of the work the University is doing to come into compliance with the EPA’s requirements.

With the history of this area including severe groundwater contamination from chloroform which affected 27 families with levels somewhere under 57 ppb, I’m honestly concerned that the University believes that any of this land should be sold off and developed to fund a stadium. An interesting side note about the chloroform levels is that the EPA report states that the State’s “recommended allowable limit” was raised from 1.9 ppb in 1984 to 57 ppb in early 1988. While the University agreed to mitigate the plume of contaminants from the groundwater which were under the 57 ppb requirement, I want to know why that limit was raised 55 ppb in only 4 years. That’s the only limit that the EPA report mentions was raised but I have to wonder if any others were altered by large amounts which may affect the public in the future because of Big Business interests.

I would really like to see more public announcements come out about the levels of contaminants that are still abundant across the UMore property especially in the areas that are not covered in the EPA report such as the “burning grounds” (which exceeds the soil reference and screening level values for Acenaphthene, Dibenzofuran, Fluoranthene, Fluorene, Naphthalene, Pyrene, Arsenic, Lead, and Mercury), etc, etc, etc.

Burying the history of the UMore lands, which is exactly what the EPA report approved the University to do, while putting up fences with vague “Danger” signs or keeping open fields with little or no demarcation, hardly seems like effective methods for keeping the general public safe from what is now tucked beneath only a foot and a half of dirt.

Related posts:

1. Gopher Ordnance Plant: Rosemount, MN
2. South Metro Crime Incident Mapping
3. Random South Metro News
4. Does the Star Trib Have a Geography Problem?
5. A Missile Silo a Tourist Attraction? I’d like to see it!