One must question the city's wisdom in trying to cover up the discovery of oil (and some nasty aromatics too) in the Bassett Creek bogs. While this discovery may derail Heritage Park's developers plans to gentrify their acreage in the bog, it may be an opportunity for the city to once and for all clean up the Bassett Creek bottomlands and recreate much needed wetlands in this flood prone watershed.[snip]
It's pretty unlikely that the City of Minneapolis leaked the large quantities of what appears to be heavy fuel oil into the Bassett Creek bogs. The rate and volume with which this oil is coming out of the bog suggest a large quantity, far more than would have leaked from some of the diesel fuel storage tanks at the school districts transportation center or leaking from vehicles crushed just upstream. This volume seems to have only one likely source- a railroad. So instead of covering and ducking, Minneapolis needs to bring the Potentially Responsible Parties (PeRPs) to justice and make them pay for cleaning up Bassett Creek.
So Minneapolis, let's quit trying to hide this oily, dirty little secret and 'fess up to it. Who knows, some retired railroad worker might see the story on TV and tell us where this pollution is coming from. All of the railroads I've mentioned have been bought or merged into successor corporations that our quite solvent- lets find the Potentially Responsible Parties (PeRPs and turn our attorneys loose on 'em, and force these PeRPs to clean up our Bassett Creek valley.
I agree completely. From what I've recently read about this site on this list and in the newspaper, it sounds like huge mess. What's more, it sounds worse than one of the Superfund sites along the river front. I would conservatively estimate that Minneapolis taxpayers have already spent more than $300,000 on trying to clean this site up and it appears to not even be remotely close to being completed.
Finding the responsible parties will not be that hard. It's clearly not ancient history if Dyna can spend some time browsing her collection of topo maps and recollections and get this much of the puzzle figured out.
I am stunned to learn this location was not cleaned up years ago, since housing has been located on the site for more than the 24 years that I've lived here.
Chris Johnson Fulton
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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