I am shocked, there is gasoline in the Mississippi River that no one wants to clean up.
November 12, 2010
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that according to the City Minneapolis and the MPCA there is no problem (so far) with gasoline seeping into the Mississippi River. I guess their scientific standards trump my smelling and walking in the “not actionable” levels of old gasoline in the stream in Father Hennepin Park. Just because they make me sick after working in the stream for over an hour or that a water sample I took from the stream was deemed by the Ramsey County Hazardous Waste Center to be hazardous. Their continuing series of tests keep coming back there is no problem. This does not pass the smell test, literally. Anyone that would walk next to that stream would know without a test that the gasoline I have witnessed for 27 months and counting has to be prevented from being part of the Mississippi River. Our continuing crime against the Mississippi River must be cleaned up. And now would be better. If the power brokers and the people invested in the plans to artificially recreate falls in Father Hennepin Park would first, and I mean first consider the water quality and health of the Big River’s ecosystem this would be cleaned up.
Gasoline on the surface of the Mississippi River in Father Hennepin Park
I need your brainstorming help. What do I do next? Below is the full email that I got from the city emergency response inspector, Patrick Hanson, at 4:51 PM on Friday afternoon. Interesting timing. My take from the email is that Xcel energy has made sure “it is not my problem” and the other testing is showing that so far the levels are “not actionable” (this is the wording from Steve Kennedy about the first test last Spring). Any human with common sense would say after walking the stream that there must be something wrong with what the MPCA says are acceptable levels if this poison is okay to seep into the source of the drinking water for 18 million Americans.
This is presuming the MPCA reads the test the same way as the City did and has the same conclusion as they did on the two previous tests. Basically at the City and State level there is no where else for me to go show my “evidence”. When did smelling and seeing with our human testing sensors get so devalued. I need some major clout help or this attempt to clean up this one small source of poisoning will be over. Any ideas out there? And please no suggestions of petitions or emails to government officials. Father Hennepin Park needs some organization whose job is to fight for environmental justice.
Thanks for all your support.
The Email
Hello All,
We continue to be busy investigating The Father Hennepin Park issue. On Wednesday November 10, Steve Kennedy, Jim Doten and I met Xcel and MPCA representatives at the old hydro electric plant at 216 Main St. The Xcel representatives included Keith Kusilek (Environmental Analyst), Rob Olson (Plant Superintendent), Jim Erickson (Safety Specialist), Tom Ganzer (Plant Operator). The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) representative was Lisa Yantachka. We inspected the facility for possible sources that correlate to the low level contaminants found at the Father Hennepin Park tail run. We inspected the entire facility including the source of the tail runs in the hydro electric power plant. No regulatory representative could detect similar odors that are present at the Father Hennepin Park tail run. We took water samples inside the building in the tail run that is upstream of the Father Hennepin Park tail run. We will receive those samples back in approximately 2 weeks time and will provide an update at that time. We had a Photoionization Detector (PID) and a Multi Rae meter (with volatile organic compound detection) for doing air quality screening. No measurements were observed on either instrument during the 2 hour inspection.
We received the water samples back that were taken at Father Hennepin Park on 10/25/10. Again, the samples came back with low levels of contaminant. There were low levels of Gasoline Range Organics (GRO) in the samples. We now have two sets of water sample results taken by Steve Kennedy using the same methodology at the same location at the same point in the creek, including a third sample taken by Steve Kennedy on that Wednesday morning. The third set of samples were taken shortly after samples were taken in the Xcel facility, roughly 30 minutes apart. In addition to the water samples, we had the PID and Multi Rae unit for air quality screening down by the tail run with us. Neither instrument picked up any readings. This correlated with our Suma canister (air quality) readings, which did detect low levels of compounds associated with gasoline, but was below what would register on the screening monitors (PID and Multi Rae) or regulatory action levels. There has been an odor present each time we have been monitoring.
Again, all our measurements are screenings measures in responding to concerns of contamination. These results should not be considered a full site assessment. All objective measurements (air and water) correlate with each other in that the contaminant level is low at the tail run location where we have sampled. The low levels we have detected appear to be aged gasoline. All readings are passed on to the MPCA for their analysis to see if they meet any sort of threshold for response.
Thank you,
Patrick Hanlon
Environmental Services Supervisor
City of Minneapolis
Office:612-673-2319
Cell: 612-685-8552
Fax:612-673-2635
