ERMUSR MISC 10-09-2007 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Sunday: Battling tainted water Page 5 of 7 animals. One compound, PFOA, likely causes cancer, a federal scientific panel said last year. In May, the company signed a new agreement with state regulators to investigate and to remedy the problems. It also has alerted 3M stockholders that another $121 million will be needed to deal with PFCs in Minnesota and at a plant in Alabama. Paying the price, for years At the Pine Bend oil refinery in Rosemount, pollution has trickled underground for years -- straight toward the Mississippi River 1'/2 miles a way. After paying a record $6.9 million fine in 1998 for water and air pollution violations, the refinery owner Flint Hills Resources says it is working harder to prevent spills and leaks, and has spent $30 million cleaning up the old ones. So far about 4.1 million gallons of product have been sucked out of the ground, using various methods. That's enough to fill nearly 500 tanker trucks. The waste is treated, incinerated or refined on site. Workers periodically recover petroleum from a trench near the river, said John Hofland, a company spokesman. Some of the cleanup will go on another 10 years or more, he added. Even low concentrations of pollution are worrisome -- and expensive. In Oakdale, 3M last year paid $3 million to build acarbon-filtration plant that removes the chemical PFOA. The new plant is expected to cost $350,000 a year to operate. The level of PFOA in the groundwater entering the plant is about 1 part per billion, slightly above the state drinking water limit. The chemical is undetectable after filtration. Each year, the city supplies 1 billion gallons of water to customers. The net result: Filters will remove about a gallon of PFOA each year. "That's the amount somebody threw in the ground years ago," said city public works director Brian Bachmeier. At Jax Cafe in northeast Minneapolis, trout still swim in an artificial stream that runs through its back patio. For years, kids could net them for the cook to prepare and serve. Not anymore. The state Health Department says a private well feeding the stream contains low levels of PCP, a preservative once used to treat railroad ties at the Shoreham railroad yard, a mile to the north. Escaped chemicals left a 100-block plume of groundwater pollution. http://www.startribune.com/10237/v-printlstory/1421645.htm1 9/21/2007