County seeks access to contaminated site

By Kevin O’Brien

Marathon County officials are pursuing an inspection warrant for an old railroad tie company in Marathon City that will allow the Wisconsin DNR to enter the property for environmental assessments.

The issue came up during a March 25 meeting of the Human Resources, Finance and Personnel Committee (HRFC), as part of an ongoing discussion about tax-delinquent properties in the county. According to a listing of properties with past-due taxes, the owners of the Weisenberger Tie and Rail owe thousands of dollars in back taxes on three different parcels.

County treasurer Connie Beyersdorf and corporation counsel Michael Puerner said they have been working with the village and the DNR to get access to the Weisenberger property so that any remaining contamination can be cleaned up. The inspection warrant needs to specify how long the inspectors will be on the property, they noted.

Puerner said the warrant is ready to be executed but they are still working with the DNR to make sure the process is carried out properly.

“We’ve had it ready to go and prepared for over a year, but the one thing we need from the DNR is a specific timeframe on which they wish to access the property,” Puerner said. “I think there’s a little confusion from them on what they need.” In a March 25 email to Gena Larson at the DNR, Puerner said he does not believe there’s any property owners willing to sign an access agreement, and in order to get a judge to sign off on a warrant, “the timeframe must be reasonably specific (i.e., a 2 week period is likely permissible; a two-month period is likely too broad).”

From 1971 to 1986, according to DNR records, the Weisenberger property was used to treat freshly cut wood with a mixture of fuel oil and pentachlorolpehnol (PCP). The preservatives were applied using two inground dip tanks, and when the wood was left out to dry, some of the chemicals soaked into the ground.

A 1993 site investigation identified significant soil contamination on the property, and the DNR “immediately fenced and secured the site to prevent direct contact exposure” with the chemicals. A groundwater recovery and treatment system was also installed at the site and ran until 1998 in order to contain the contamination, according to DNR records.

To complete any remaining clean-up of the site, the village applied for a Wisconsin Assessment Monies (WAM) grant through the DNR, but release of the funds is on hold until access is granted to the site, according to village administrator Steve Cherek.

Cherek noted that the DNR was first notified of contaminants back in 1987, a year after operations at the site ceased.

“It’s definitely been going for a very long time,” he said.

Until the contamination is fully removed, however, the site cannot be redeveloped.

“If the property were cleaned up under the grant, I think there would be interested parties looking to buy it from the county,” Cherek said.

The Weisenberger property is one of hundreds of tax-delinquent properties the county is trying to address through a combination of notices, final warnings, and eventually, legal action.

Beyersdorf told supervisors last week that her office is in process of sending out 90-day notices to property owners who face foreclosure as soon as July or August if they do not pay what they owe the county. The treasurer’s office is now handling a second batch of properties since the county implemented a legal process called in rem, which allows several properties to be seized as part of a single court filing.

Beyersdorf said 89 of these property owners have paid what they owed, including 26 in the past three months, leaving 31 parcels that could be seized and resold later this year. A third batch of properties started with 91 parcels, but 70 of them have paid off their past-due taxes, she said.

Supervisor Gayle Marshall commended the treasurer’s office on getting so many people to pay off their debts before the county pursues foreclosure.

“Having 70 people pay out of the 91 is a great thing,” she said. “We appreciate your efforts.”

All together, Beyersdorf said her office has collected $5 million in past-due taxes since the county ramped up its efforts to clear its backlog of tax-delinquent taxes. Under state law, the county can no longer pursue pastdue taxes after 10 years, so the county has been focusing on taxes that go back nearly a decade.

Board chairman Kurt Gibbs raised concerns about errors in the process that have been reported in the past six months, leading some property owners to be double-charged for what they owe on special assessments or still getting past-due warnings even after their debt is paid off.

“There needs to be better communications with these individuals,” he said.

Beyersdorf said refunds have been issued to those who were overcharged, and people have been understanding.

“We have been in communication with those individuals and are resolving the problem,” she said.

Connie Beyersdorf