Ashland Superfund Clean-Up Project to Begin

ASHLAND- The investigation of the lakeshore area has been going on since the late 1990s, but it officially became a Superfund project in the early 2000s.

The site was a highly industrialized area in the late 1800s consisting of a manufactured gas plant lumbering operation and a city municipal land fill.

Now, the city says it's time to protect the environment and the people living near the area.

Michael BeBeau with Xcel Energy explained, "It was a highly industrialized area at the turn of the century, and the by–product of all the activity that occurred was left there and it needs to be removed."

Phase one of the Superfund project includes blocking off the contaminated area.

The plan is to install two walls; one blocking the shore line, the other along the land boundaries.

The walls will prevent any contamination from leaving or entering the site.

Phase one should be starting in the next couple of weeks and will take the entire year to complete.

Phase two will involve removing the sediments in the lake with dry and wet dredging.

There's no set date as to when that will start.