from the top of the uncapped 105-foot-
deep well at a rate of approximately 40
to 50 gallons a minute, discharging water
from the deeper aquifer into the shallow
soils for who knows how long – so that
was a really interesting find and explained
the saturated soils,” he continued. “A
water well contractor was retained to
permanently abandon the well.”
And that wasn’t the only issue to present
itself during demolition. The PCB- and
mercury-stained concrete inside the
building needed to be segregated from
all the other concrete and couldn’t be
crushed and reused as often happens.
Instead, it needed to go to a landfill, but
not even that was simple.
“These rules are so involved that we
had to actually convince the landfill that
they could accept this stuff. They didn’t
library building began in late 2017. of materials we checked out, set a record
Anywhere from a foot to 10 feet of clean with almost 37,000 items, but what really
fill was brought into the site to raise it for caught our attention was the number of
construction and cap the small amount of new cards we gave out to patrons. We
residual contamination that remained. To generally do about 80 to 90 of those per
assist in the demolition and site capping month on average, and we did 396 in
we had to go through.” of residual contamination, Ayres wrote August – so we quadrupled the amount of
and secured a $500,000 WEDC Idle people that were new to us.”
“There was a small area of low-level Industrial Sites Grant. The Village used the
know they could take it, and we had to
educate them and get confirmation from
EPA that, in fact, they could,” Steiner said.
“The landfills have every right to decide
not to take it even though the rules say
they can – so that was another process
PCB and PAH (polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbon) contamination
and occasional hits of chromium
funding from WEDC to ready the project To understand the true impact, Plumb
site for construction. said it’s important to remember the
dysfunction of the former library
contamination in the soil, but that’s all From blight to beauty
been capped, and there isn’t any risk Waunakee’s new library – situated
for direct exposure to anyone,” Steiner along the picturesque shoreline of Six
said. “As a member of the community, Mile Creek – opened August 1, and
it is extremely gratifying to see this the community’s response has been
blighted property, with its inherent health “over-the-top outstanding,” said Library
and safety and environmental risks, Director Erick Plumb.
transformed into this wonderful new
facility for the good of the surrounding “We had almost 18,000 visits in our first
neighborhood and community at large.” month in August, which is a good 5,000
more than what we did in August 2018,”
Ultimately, construction on the new
6 | TRENDS
Plumb said. “Our circulation, the amount
– an unassuming 12,000-square-
foot facility with stacks of books but
no meeting spaces or study rooms
and few spaces to sit.
“I think what strikes people when they
walk into the building here is that it’s
really open. It’s inviting. It begs you to
walk around and find your spot and to
linger – not just grab your things and get
out of the building, which is kind of what
the old building was designed to do,”
Ingenuity, Integrity, and Intelligence.