Riverside Park sign. Image courtesy: WAOW TV
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The process of digging up the contaminated soil in Riverside Park will begin with more surveying and testing.
The Wausau Finance Committee approved spending $28,600 out of the city’s environmental fund to allow REI to conduct sampling on the soil and create detailed site maps to allow the full scope of the project to come into focus before the heavy lifting begins.
“Initially, this was going to be part of the remediation plan,” said Lindman. “But after talking with [Hydrologist] Matt [Michalski] at REI we though there could be a high risk for a change order if we didn’t have this information before we actually did the remedation.”
Change orders refer to a change in the project that increases the cost and/or the amount of work that needs to be done. So Lindman says it doesn’t take an engineer to know it’s in the city’s best interest to avoid them. Once the evaluation and testing are complete he expects the city will be able to bid out the work for completion by year’s end.
According to REI, they plan to share some of the results of the sampling with the Marathon County Landfill which will allow them to determine if they can take the dirt as solid waste.
The status of the soil in Riverside Park has been an ongoing discussion in Wausau for several years, with both the city and community groups conducting multiple rounds of testing to determine the amount of contamination present.
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