Kinnickinnic River cleanup funding announced

After years of planning, the money is finally on the table to dredge approximately 170,000 cubic yards of sediment contaminated by PCBs and PAHs from the KK River between Becher Street and Kinnickinnic Avenue.

Governor Jim Doyle formally announced the full funding of the project at a press conference Aug. 20 at Paul Davis Restoration, along the western bank of the river at 2000 S. Fourth St.

The $22 million project is expected to be completed in three phases, according to an EPA fact sheet:

This fall, construction should begin on a special cell for contaminated sediment within the existing Milwaukee Area Confined Disposal Facility (CDF), which is owned by the Port of Milwaukee and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Also this fall, construction should begin on shoreline stabilization features in the project area, so that dredging does not destabilize existing property owners’ shorelines.

Sediment removal from the river and disposal in the special CDF cell should take place throughout 2009, using a clamshell bucket on a barge.

The total project cost was $24.4 million, according to Doyle.

The state is contributing $7.7 million to the project, with $14.3 million coming from the Great Lakes Legacy Act, according to the EPA fact sheet.

Last fall, the city of Milwaukee contributed $250,000, matched by the Kinnickinnic River Business Improvement District, for a total of $500,000. The KK River BID members also will contribute $1,000 per linear foot for shoreline stabilization measures beyond those paid for by Legacy Act funds.

The CDF capacity will also be expanded to allow the Army Corps to continue depositing navigation dredge spoils for another 20 years.

The corps currently dredges approximately 17,000 cubic yards per year. The 170,000 cubic yards of contaminated dredge spoils will take up much of the CDF’s existing capacity of 200,000 cubic yards.

The governor also presented a symbolic check of $480,000 in state funds to the Port of Milwaukee for an unrelated project. This harbor assistance program money will be used to upgrade the port’s infrastructure, specifically the area by the Grand Trunk Yards, said Larry Sullivan, the port’s chief engineer.

Doyle called Milwaukee the “hub of our economy” in Wisconsin and said Great Lakes shipping would become an even greater part of the economy in the future.

“The Great Lakes define our economy in Wisconsin,” Doyle said, speaking also about the Great Lakes Water Compact, which is expected to be ratified by the U.S. House of Representatives this fall. “They define who we are.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett called cleaning up environmental hotspots like the Milwaukee Estuary a “moral imperative.” The KK River dredging is intended to “de-list” the Milwaukee Estuary as an Area of Concern, as defined by the EPA because of “beneficial use impairments.”

The KK is the sixth sediment cleanup project to receive Legacy Act funding since 2004. EPA’s newly appointed regional administrator, Lynn Buhl, said Wisconsin was leading the way with remediation projects and that dredging the KK was exactly the kind of project the Legacy Act was intended to fund.