| This Bioremediation Field Initiative project is under way in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, at the former site of Reilly Tar and Chemical Corporation’s coal tar distillation and wood preserving plant. From 1917 to 1972, wastewater discharges and dumping from this plant contaminated about 80 acres of soil and the underlying ground water with wood preserving wastes. In 1978, the Minnesota Department of Health discovered significant concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in six municipal drinking water wells neighboring the Reilly Tar plant. St. Louis Park currently is pumping and treating thecontaminated ground water plume, but without an effort to control the source of PAHs, pumping and treating might be necessary for several hundred years. |