WHITEFISH – The Environmental Protection Agency says efforts to remove contaminated sediment from the Whitefish River are taking longer than expected.
The EPA ordered Burlington Northern Santa Fe to undertake the river restoration near a fueling facility upstream from Whitefish after finding diesel and other contaminants in the sediment. The EPA’s Jennifer Chergo said the cleanup, which was supposed to be completed by now, is expected to be finished by the end of December.
“They haven’t hit any major obstacles,” she said. “They’re just moving slower than they expected.”
The pollution, she said, was presumably deposited by a century of railroading, and BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas confirmed that the sediment showed the contamination dated from “many decades ago.”
A local resident reported an oily sheen on the water near the fueling facility in 2007. That area already is a state Superfund site, with a known plume of diesel spreading beneath it on the shallow aquifer.
Environmental officials found bunker fuel oil and weathered diesel trapped in sediment. The contamination begins next to the railroad facility and extends downriver about two miles.