News Releases from Region 05

EPA to start sampling sediment from Lake Linden Beach and Torch Lake in Michigan’s U.P.

For Immediate Release: No. 16-OPA084

CHICAGO (Oct. 3, 2017) — Over the next two weeks, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will oversee Honeywell Specialty Materials LLC’s collection of sediment samples from Lake Linden Beach and Torch Lake in the Village of Lake Linden in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The sampling is required to determine the extent of contamination from heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and to design a cleanup plan.

The campground including shower and wash stations will remain open. The village has posted warning signs prohibiting the public from entering a fenced storm drain area. Local and state health agencies advise that it is safe to swim at Lake Linden Beach.

Most of the Lake Linden beach front is located on the site of former copper processing facilities used by the mining industry in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. Mining waste was discharged to Torch Lake which is now a Superfund cleanup site.

To learn more about this site, visit: https://response.epa.gov/LLRec.  

For more information about MDEQ’s Abandoned Mining Wastes Project visit: http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,4561,7-135-3311_4109_9846_76560---,00.html.
 

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