By Joseph Marks, staff writer

City and watershed officials met Monday with representatives from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to discuss plans for cleaning up the dump buried beneath Edgewater Park.

A deal was struck late in the 2006 legislative session to provide about $3.65 million to clean up the dump through the MPCA as part of the state’s 2006 Capital Investment Bill. Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, was chairman of the 2006 House Capital Investment Committee.

The city originally requested about $1 million to do the project itself.

The MPCA estimates there are about 500,000 cubic yards of garbage lying beneath the north side of the 62.6-acre Edgewater Park, dumped there primarily in the 1950s. The south side, where the bandshell, cottage and playground are, was not a dump.

That waste produces methane and volatile organic substances like vinyl chloride that rise up out of the garbage, killing vegetation.

Donald Abrams, MPCA project manager for closed landfill remediation, said the chemicals have not infected nearby Albert Lea Lake because volatile organics evaporate quickly and other chemicals spread over a diffuse area. Wells dug near the water’s edge, on the other hand, proved extremely toxic.

The MPCA is doing about 106 similar projects across the state right now, Abrams said, through their closed landfill clean-up program but the agency has never moved this much garbage before.

With the average truck only able to transport about 20 cubic feet of garbage, Abrams said, it will take roughly 25,000 trips to transport all waste out of the park.

Abrams said he envisions a two-year process to dig garbage beneath the park and transport it to safer storage in the city’s current landfill.

The early plan involves hiring a consultant to design the project this fall and winter, then bidding the project in February or March of 2007, Abrams said. The MPCA will dig a new cell at the existing city landfill during summer 2007 and haul waste from the park to the new cell over the winters of 2007 and 2008. Restoration work on Edgewater Park will take place in spring and summer of 2008.

Abrams said the MPCA prefers to haul waste during the winter to cut down on offensive odors and mosquitos. He said the large trucks are also less likely to cause damage to frozen roads.

Even after the park has been filled in with new dirt, Abrams said, the park level will likely fall between 6 and 10 feet.

If the project goes over the allocated $3.65 million, Abrams said, the city will have to secure more funding, either

from the state or locally, or change the scope of the project.

Albert Lea City Manager Victoria Simonsen said the city plans to put $1 million toward the project, likely to supplement the state’s share.

City Engineer Steven Jahnke said the city’s primary role in the clean up will be helping the MPCA reduce costs by finding available dirt to fill in the landfill and finding alternate routes to haul waste.

Jahnke said one source for dirt may come from the Shell Rock River Watershed, if the watershed board chooses to dredge Bancroft Bay.

The city of Albert Lea began using the Edgewater Park site as a dump in 1954 and built Edgewater Park on top of the site in 1971.