City gets $2.5 million additional funding

Staff

Published Thursday, March 29, 2007

By Sarah Light, staff writer

Minnesota’s Senate and House of Representatives approved bonding this week for Albert Lea’s landfill cleanup work at North Edgewater Park.

State Rep. Robin Brown said the research pertaining to this funding has evidently paid off.

“I’m so excited for a number of reasons,” Brown said. “This bonding bill is just good, good, good for Albert Lea. This Edgewater dump site needs to be cleaned up, and I don’t know how we’d be able to do that without state dollars.”

In 2006, the city was awarded a $3.6 million bond to use toward cleaning up the landfill, which is leaching into Fountain Lake. But because recent reports are estimating the cost of the project to be increased to between $4.5 and $6 million, the city put in a request for an additional $2.5 million in bonding funds from the state.

State Sen. Dan Sparks said he and others presented their bonding bill — which included the project — on Tuesday in the Senate’s Finance Committee. He said they were pleased to have the project pass out of the committee and make it onto the Senate bonding bill, which passed Wednesday.

“I don’t think we could position ourselves any better than to have it both in the Senate bonding bill and the House bonding bill,” Sparks said.

Upon hearing the news that the funding passed in the House Tuesday, Albert Lea Mayor Randy Erdman said he was pleased with the outcome and hopeful that the funding in the Senate’s bonding bill would pass as well.

“That’s wonderful news, and it showed that people worked together toward a common goal,” Erdman said. “That’s what we needed to do as a community.”

The Senate’s bill passed hours later.

Erdman said he thinks legislators have understood the urgency of the situation. The pollution was

found initially in 1989, he noted.

“This is really going to improve the water quality,” he said. “They understand that it’s something that needs to be taken care of.”

City Manager Victoria Simonsen said she, too, was pleased with the results and thinks it is important for water quality to be addressed sooner than later.

“We really appreciate the assistance from Sen. Sparks and Rep. Brown in standing behind this cause and helping us get it through this year,” Simonsen said.

The 30-acre North Edgewater Park landfill site was originally used as a sand and gravel mining operation. From 1956 to 1972 it served as the Albert Lea Dump, accepting municipal solid waste — which included mixed commercial, industrial and residential wastes.

When the dump was in operation, borrow pits were filled with the waste and open burning was practiced. When operations of the dump ceased, however, the site was covered with lake sediments dredged from Fountain Lake and there was no formal engineered closure of the area.

The area has since begun to produce vinyl chloride and other metals.

According to a site investigation from 2006, there is a total of 375,000 to 500,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil that needs to be removed from the area.

If all goes according to plan, construction will be set to begin in July, with bids being accepted in April or May.

The waste from the site will be relocated to a new 30- to 40-foot deep lined cell.

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