Company spokesmen talked about the plan at a public informational meeting at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church. NSP plans on pumping out a pocket of coal tar from the Copper Falls Aquifer that lies beneath its property at 301 Lake Shore Drive East, next to the church. The coal tar was a by-product of a manufactured gas plant that occupied the NSP site from 1885 to 1947. Some of the coal tar was reused as boiler fuel or sold, but some was released into the environment where it seeped down through the soil into the aquifer.
Free product is undissolved, pure coal tars.
A plume of ground water contaminated with dissolved coal tars extends to the north, toward the lake, from the site. The cleanup action is designed to only pump out the free product pocket. It will not address the contaminated groundwater. A cleanup plan for the groundwater, and other contaminated areas, is still waiting for an Environmental Protection Agency ranking of the site for possible inclusion in the Super Fund program. Besides the aquifer, the DNR has found coal tar contamination in about 20 acres of soils, groundwater, surface water and sediments in Chequamegon Bay between Kreher Park and the city marina.