The Appleton Redevelopment Authority met 04/12/2023. One of the information items they received was an update on the environmental remediation efforts at 222 N Oneida Street.
I’ve prepared a complete transcript of the discussion for download.
Last year, the Appleton Redevelopment Authority approved an agreement to sell the property to Valley Transit which intends to build a multi-level, mixed-use transit center on the property. In order for the sale to go through and the transit center project be approved by the Federal Transit Authority, environmental remediation needs to be completed on the site. They believed that they had removed all the contamination on-site and gotten the property to the levels required by the DNR; however, the DNR requested that they drill a monitoring well to the northwest of the parcel in the public right-of-way. The sample from that well came back contaminated at higher levels than they had anticipated, and they could not close out the site until that was resolved.
There were multiple reasons why that might be the case:
- It might be from 222 N Oneida Street.
- It might be from a previous utility line or trench that had been there.
- It might be from a different site entirely.
They needed to determine what the source of the contamination they measured was. To that end, the DNR had requested further sampling from that well. The DNR preferred quarterly testing so it would probably happen in May but they might be able to push that up a little to keep the timeline moving.
The purchase price for the property had been $150,000, $50,000 of which had been set into a segregated account to complete the environmental cleanup. Of that $50,000 only $1,700 had been used thus far.
ARA Chairperson Marissa Downs noted that the sampling well was located in the right-of-way and asked, if the samples kept coming back contaminated, what would the DNR expect the city to do? Would they be required to tear up the right-of-way and excavate?
Mr. Rehbein said the purpose of the sampling was to see if the contamination was worsening or improving and try to determine where it was coming from. He thought that if the DNR wanted to continue investigation, they would probable tell the city to try placing a couple other wells in the right-of-way to determine if there was an area in which the contamination levels were increasing.
Chairperson Downs asked what would happen if the wells that were actually located on the site remained clean and the parcel at 222 N Oneida Street was truly clean in spite of the contamination showing up in the well located in the right-of-way.
Mr. Rehbein said there was a possibility that if the samples in the right-of-way were high but the site itself was clean that they could separate those from each other, mark the case at 222 N Oneida as closed, and open a new case on the contamination in the right-of-way, but further testing was needed to determine if that was a feasible option.
Chairperson Downs asked what would happen in the $50,000 put toward environmental cleanup by Valley Transit ran out. Mr. Rehbein responded that Valley Transit would probably put more funding into the account. If not, then environmental work would cease until they had additional funding.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1080164&GUID=A5E4EE5F-0EDE-4FF3-96D0-04192FCE356A
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