Little Lake Cleanup Team GW Partners LLC and Its Contractors
Who We Are: Welcome to the Little Lake Cleanup Team Web site. Our team consists of GW Partners, LLC and various contractors, who helped clean up Little Lake Butte des Morts by decreasing the levels of PCBs in the lake. GW Partners, LLC consists of two companies, WTM I Company (formerly Wisconsin Tissue Mills in Menasha), and Glatfelter (former owner of the Bergstrom Mill in Neenah).
Current Status: Summer 2010
As part of the Little Lake Cleanup Team's plan to restore
the wetlands on the former PCB cleanup staging area, students from FoxValleyTechnicalCollege
helped hand-plant 3,500 native shrubs, including buttonbush, high-bush
cranberry, red-osier dogwood, sandbar willow and winterberry on June 14, 2010.
Students worked to restore the former staging site into a
sustainable habitat for a variety of local wildlife such as sandhill cranes,
ducks, geese, woodchucks, foxes and deer.
The restoration effort generated local print, television and
online coverage. Please click on the Appleton
Post-Crescent to view its story or WFRV-TV CBS 5's coverage is below:
The team has removed the water treatment building and
donated the chain-link fencing that surrounded the property to Neenah Baseball
Athletics and for use at Larsen Field in O'Hauser Park.
View the slideshow below of the progression of the
restoration effort.
Brief History: The project took six years to complete and was part of a federal and state initiative. Initial sediment removal began in September of 2004, and the entire remedial effort was completed by May 2009. Our team did the cleanup work under the oversight of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which monitored the project for compliance with all rules and regulations. Our job was to help lower the level of PCBs in the lake and their exposure to the fish.
Safety was our top priority on this project. We reached out to the public on a number of levels to make sure people were informed about the work that took place both on the lake and in the neighborhood of our shoreline staging areas. Our primary staging area was just south of the Highway 10/441 bridge and east of N. Lake Street. In late 2008, we opened a second staging area on Butte des Morts Beach Road to house our pumps and pipeline as well as sand and gravel supplies for the last phase of our work related to placing sand and armored caps in northern areas of the lake.
We encourage you to explore the pages of this Web site, which offer insight into various aspects of how this important and large project was completed. If you have any questions, please contact the Little Lake Cleanup Team representative at knaidl@laughlin.com.
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