February 6, 2015

News Sports Top Story Oredockers edge B/W

Ashland hosted the Bayfield/Washburn wrestling team Friday night in a dual meet. At the end of the night, Ashland came out on top of the overa

Bowman-Pieterek, Catherine Jeanne, Ashland, Disorderly Conduct Domestic Abuse incident Amended from Disorderly Conduct, No Contest, Probatio

CONCORDIA Concordia University Wisconsin officials have released the Fall Honors List for the 2014-2015 academic year, and two area students

After nearly 10 months of work involving more than a 150 workers and oversight personnel, the excavation and thermal treatment of impacted soils at the Ashland Lakefront Project is nearly complete.

Why don't we learn from our past behavior that proved to be disastrous? Why are we bent on self-destruction? I was talking with a friend about the proposed hog CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) in Eileen Township. This operation is at the headwaters of several watersheds which enter Chequamegon Bay and on into Lake Superior. He pointed out that the Ashland Press had two articles on the same page, one about the Superfund site (cleanup of toxic waste from a past era), and the other, an article on the CAFO hog operation. We are in the middle of trying to clean up one toxic mess and entertaining the idea of creating another.

Members of the Ashland Lakefront Superfund Cleanup Advisory Committee were told Wednesday that the 2014 portion of the Phase One work will be completed in the near future, and that proposals for Phase Two work will be made by Xcel Energy by the end of the month. According to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Northern Region Remediation and Redevelopment Program Supervisor John Robinson, the cleanup is continuing on schedule through the winter, and that the excavation of the contaminated shore soils was now about 90 percent complete. Backfilling of the treated soils was also about 70 percent complete.

In so many ways, 2014 left an indelible mark on the Chequamegon Bay region.

Intense storms this fall breached a barge connection system in the Ashland, Wis. harbor, designed to protect the Northern States Power Superfund site. Soil and groundwater at the site are contaminated with tar, oil, metals and other chemical pollutants. The damage postponed cleanup efforts until next spring, providing more time and opportunity for the substances to spread. Research funded by Wisconsin Sea Grant could help prevent such weather-related damage and delays in the future.

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February 6, 2015