The Burlington Northern Superfund Site Gets a Review

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is beginning a five-year review of the Brainerd-Baxter Burlington Northern Railroad Tie Plant Superfund cleanup site. The MPCA is asking for community input. They are seeking observations of the site over time and ways the cleanup may have helped the area.

Superfund law requires a review at least every five years to determine if allowable levels of contamination have been exceeded. This is the fourth such review of the B.N. site.

The 70-acre site lies between Baxter and Brainerd at State Highways 210 and 48.

Burlington Northern operated a railroad-tie-treating plant on the site from 1907 to 1985. Ties were pressure-treated at the plant with heated creosote-coal tar or creosote-fuel oil mixtures.

The primary groundwater contaminant sources were shallow lagoons, which were used to hold process wastewater from the time the plant opened until October 1982.

In the cleanup, contaminated soil and sludges were consolidated into a permanent, on-site underground storage containment vault.

The MPCA says groundwater and soil contamination is still an issue that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad is working to clean up, with government oversight.