More 3M cleanup set to move forward in Cottage Grove

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The city of Cottage Grove has cleared the way for the latest phase of 3M Co.’s plan to clean up contaminated soil at its facility in the city, approving a permit and signing off on an environmental assessment completed by the company that will allow work to move forward.

City council members last week approved a resolution agreeing with a 3M assessment that no significant environmental impacts will result from the removal of roughly 17,000 cubic yards of sediment contaminated with perfluorochemicals (PFCs) — chemicals that were manufactured by 3M for more than a half-century and that have appeared in east metro groundwater in the past decade.

That decision means 3M won’t have to further examine environmental effects of the cleanup plan that is part of a larger remediation project agreed to by 3M and state pollution control officials in 2009.

Cottage Grove City Administrator Ryan Schroeder said the city signed off on the environmental assessment completed by 3M after state and other local agencies expressed no major problems with the document. City council members also approved a permit required because of the large volume of soil that will be removed.

“No matter what you think of PFCs ... removal of material is a good thing,” Schroeder said. “It’s removal of a contaminating element.”

The removal of thousands of cubic yards of Mississippi River sediment from the East Cove area of the 3M Cottage Grove campus is the third and final step in removing PFC-contaminated soils from the area in an effort to prevent further contamination in area water. As part of the cleanup agreement struck with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency 3M will also install a water treatment facility at the Cottage Grove campus.

Excavation work is scheduled to begin in June and wrap up by November, 3M officials have said. The contaminated sediment will be hauled to a disposal site in Rosemount and backfilled with clean sand.

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