map of current contamination sites in Marathon

Hello Jason
I hope that you are well.

One local person who listened to today's proceedings said that the panel was looking for information about contamination sites in Marathon. Sarah Newbery passed on the attached map from her work with the drinking water/ground water group. Also, Ted Schintz passed this along:

I snowshoe past that site several times every winter.  There are many other chemicals besides mercury buried there. Some of the chemicals are in a decent concrete structure that very much looks like a basement, with a floor and walls.  Many other chemicals were buried in steel drums.  I have heard about another dump site located near a school yard, as well.

Someone appears to be monitoring the mercury Dump site still.  Brush was cleared from the sides of the trails to monitoring wells last summer.  When the ownership of the mill went from an American owner to Kruger and Tembec, the site was not included in the sale.  It stayed with the American owner.

The site is at UTM:  16U 547336 E 5394000 N.

Ted

From her groundwater work, Sarah Newbery also made this note below:

The other piece element that I have been thinking about but have not yet had a chance to put my fingers on is that the secondary water source for Marathon should the ground water in town become contaminated was going to be the aquifer that is at the bottom of the ski hill.  I am not sure the degree to which the Bigtiig River is connected to that (surface water/groundwater connections) but if there is contamination of that source of water by outflow of contaminated water from the minesite, Marathon would have to put a pipe (as I recall) about over 1km out into the lake to access reasonable freshwater (have to get well beyond the mercury).  This latter element didn't strike me until I was in the presentation and there was one particular map that I found online while they were talking about water which raised this issue of secondary source of municipal water.

Best wishes, Teri