Coal ash cleanup begins at power plant site

Nov 3 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Don Behm Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Workers began removing coal ash and soil Thursday morning from Monday's bluff collapse and mudslide on the Lake Michigan shore at the We Energies' Oak Creek Power Plant, spokesman Brian Manthey said.

The mix of ash and soil is being disposed of at a landfill on the power plant property, he said.

A contractor completed building a stone berm about 100 west of the shore early Thursday, enabling cleanup crews to begin work. Workers are setting aside large debris, such as sections of a storage building destroyed in the mudslide and container units, for later disposal.

State Department of Natural Resources' officials are monitoring the cleanup, said Ann Coakley, director of the department's waste and materials management bureau.

Thursday's high waves on the lake prevented a separate contractor from continuing the skimming of fuel and other debris from the surface of the lake, Manthey said.

On Thursday, no fuel sheen was visible outside a pair of surface booms intended to contain the pollution, he said. The booms form semicircles on the lake.

Absorbent material was placed inside the first boom overnight to help remove fuel, Manthey said. The fuel is from a vehicle and construction equipment pushed into the lake by the force of the mudslide.

An undetermined volume of coal ash flowed into the lake in Monday's mudslide. An investigation into the cause of the bluff collapse is continuing.

In the 1950s, ash from the power plant was buried in a shoreline ravine and covered with soil.