Tag Archives: We Energies bluff collapse

Cleanup is under way, and the scope of this week’s bluff collapse at the Oak Creek We Energies power plant is just now becoming known.

Check out the Journal Sentinel story here. From it:

An estimated 2,500 cubic yards of coal ash and soil – enough to fill more than 208 large dump trucks – was pushed into Lake Michigan in Monday’s bluff collapse and landslide at the We Energies’ Oak Creek Power Plant, a state environmental official said Friday.

The slide carried 25,000 cubic yards of ash and soil down the slope and about 10% of the load washed into the lake, said Ann Coakley, director of the waste and materials management bureau for the Department of Natural Resources.

Samples of coal ash and lake water were collected this week for testing to determine the environmental impact of the ash slide, officials said. Tests will show the levels of heavy metals and other contaminants in the ash.

Test results were not available Friday, Coakley said.

Here is a WISN 12 story on the cleanup.

I also asked South Milwaukee Water Superintendent Doug Fischer about the potential impact of the bluff collapse to South Milwaukee, and he said he was not concerned given our filtration processes and because the debris made its way south of Oak Creek, not north to South Milwaukee.