WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Despite recent soil testing in Riverside Park, no testing will be done on the water of the river nearby.
Monday afternoon the Wausau Parks and Recreation Committee discussed the possibility of testing the water quality of the Wisconsin River near Riverside Park. More soil testing for dioxins at Riverside Park was recently approved prompting a community question about the water quality near Isle of Ferns by Riverside Park. The item was discussed at the committee’s July meeting but was tabled until August to hear from city staff about testing.
A letter with more information about potentially testing the water of the Wisconsin River was written by City Environmental Engineer Kevin Fabel. In the letter, Fabel discouraged the committee from approving testing on the river as the City wouldn’t be able to test the bed sediment due to state statutes. District 4 Alder Tom Neal agreed, saying the Parks and Recreation Committee would be going out of their role.
“Beyond the park, we’re getting outside of our purview. We don’t have any bathing beaches or places where we encourage people to enter the water. Even if we did a water testing without sediment, and came up relatively clean. I would feel reticent to say to citizens oh yeah it’s fine go jump in the river, mainly because of the sediment.”
The idea of testing the water in the river was brought to the committee by Chair and District 1 Alder Pat Peckham. Peckham said since the City had money sitting a fund that could be used for testing, it would be worthwhile to hire a consultant and see what testing would look like. The money would come from the former Holtz-Krause landfill fund that wasn’t used after the landfill was given a clean bill of health by the DNR in 2015 when it was repurposed into the Eastbay Sports Complex.
There was also discussion about if there could be potential legal action against any groups that contributed to polluting the river through groundwater like Wauleco. District 11 Alder Lou Larson said he’d like to see potential remedial action on the river from Wauleco or another party. “Without the sediment testing, its why even bother at all? Because its a river, water is here it’s gone there. You know you pee in a river it’s done, its down the river. If the responsible parties need to test this, then let’s let the responsible parties test this water.”
The committee voted against testing the water of the Wisconsin River in Riverside Park 1-4. An update was given on the new round of testing in Riverside park Monday afternoon. The new soil samples will be taken from the park on Wednesday morning and the committee hopes to have the test results in time for their September meeting.
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