Muskego Sanitary Landfill

Site Information

Muskego, WI (Waukesha County)
EPA ID# WID000713180
NPL Narrative
NPL Factsheet
CERCLIS listing
Alias(es): Wauer Landfill, Allied Waste System
Enviromapper map

Contact Information

Community Involvement Coordinator
Susan Pastor (pastor.susan@epa.gov)
312-353-1325 or 800-621-8431, ext. 31325

Remedial Project Manager
Jeff Gore
(gore.jeffrey@epa.gov)
312-886-6552 or 800-621-8431, ext. 6652

Assistant Regional Counsel
Tom Krueger
(krueger.thomas@epa.gov)
312-886-0562 or 800-621-8431, ext. 60562

Repositories

(where to view written records)

Muskego Public Library
S73W16663 Janesville Rd
Muskego, WI

Links

1994 Public Health Assessment

DHFS fact sheet for vinyl chloride

EPA Superfund Home Page
Region 5 Superfund
Superfund Frequent Questions

Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry

Background

The Muskego Sanitary Landfill is a 56-acre site that was the location of a former landfill, animal-rendering plant and gravel quarry in Muskego, Wisconsin. EPA has been overseeing a cleanup done by site owner Waste Management of Wisconsin, Inc. and several other companies that sent industrial waste to the landfill or used hazardous substances on site. They are all considered to be responsible for environmental problems at the site. (more...)

Site Updates | Latest Update | News Releases | Fact Sheets || Technical Documents || Five-Year Reviews || Legal Agreements

You will need the free Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.

Site Updates

April 2011

A legal document called a proposed consent decree was lodged with the United States District Court in Milwaukee on April 12. This was done by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It lists claims against 38 companies to recover cleanup costs in connection with the Muskego Sanitary Landfill site. Public comments may be directed to DOJ through May 12. Further information on the comment period can be found in an April 27 Federal Register notice (PDF) (2pp, 58K).

Under this consent decree, four companies (Waste Management of Wisconsin, Inc., ArcelorMittal Mortgage Acceptance, Inc., General Electric Co., and PPG Industries, Inc.) will clean up the site as outlined in a document called an Explanation of Significant Differences (19pp, 2.22MB) September 2010.

This September 2010 document outlines EPA's changes to the site's original cleanup plan. The changes were needed because additional investigations found contamination had spread to ground water outside the landfill boundaries.

Changes were also necessary to:

Upgrade source control measures currently in place.
Sample and evaluate areas beyond the landfill to verify the contamination is naturally breaking down.
Provide for backup measures if the contamination is not breaking down.
Prevent human exposure to the areas of contamination.

The changes included:

Evaluating whether natural processes are reducing contaminant levels in ground water outside the landfill area and developing further measures if they are not.
Improving institutional controls such as ordinances and deed restrictions.
Evaluating and improving the currently used technologies including landfill liquid and gas collections systems, landfill cap and ground water treatment and monitoring systems.
Developing a wellhead protection plan to ensure contaminated ground water does not affect City Well #7.

The original cleanup plan is described in two other documents both called "record of decision" which EPA issued in 1992 and 1995.

In 2009, EPA completed its third review (Muskego Five Year Review, 2009 (PDF) (39pp, 4MB)) of the original cleanup. Such reviews are required at least every five years where the cleanup is complete but hazardous waste remains managed on-site. They are done to ensure that the cleanup continues to protect people and the environment.

The review found that the cleanup is protecting human health and the environment in the short term. For the long term, further evaluation of the ground water cleanup, institutional controls, operation and maintenance, and operating systems is needed.

More operation and maintenance and institutional controls (including the new well head protection plan and restrictions on local ground water use) are being done to assure long-term protection. The next five-year review is scheduled for 2014.

Previous five-year review reports have included a brief reference to a civil lawsuit in the Wisconsin court system. There are significant ongoing developments in the court case record. Because EPA is not directly involved in this state court case, please refer to the Wisconsin Circuit Court web site for the most current status.