Spring Park Municipal Well Field sits in Spring Park, Minnesota, and was added to the National Priorities List on May 17, 2018. Two of the city's three municipal drinking water wells are contaminated with a groundwater plume of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The main contaminant is trichloroethylene, or TCE, first detected by the Minnesota Department of Health in 2004. The plume also contains cis-1,2-dichloroethylene (DCE) and vinyl chloride. The third well draws from a deep aquifer but cannot reliably meet the city's long-term water needs on its own.
The federal drinking water limit for TCE is 5 micrograms per liter. Minnesota sets its own Health Risk Limit much lower, at 0.4 micrograms per liter, to protect infants and children, who drink more water relative to their body weight and have developing immune systems. To protect the water supply in the meantime, the city and state installed an interim treatment system. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency then completed a two-year project to design and build an addition to Spring Park's drinking water treatment plant, with equipment specifically designed to remove TCE from the two contaminated wells.
The site has one operable unit covering the entire property. EPA began the Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study (RI/FS) on August 26, 2021. The RI/FS is the formal process used to study contamination and evaluate cleanup options. No cleanup remedy has been selected yet, and construction of remedial action has not started. Key milestones, including remedy selection, remedial action startup, construction completion, and removal from the National Priorities List, all remain ahead. EPA completed a second field activity in 2024 and published a final technical memorandum covering sampling and well installation work from 2023 and 2024. The agency is currently reviewing that data to decide what groundwater investigation work comes next. Because assessments are still ongoing, there is not yet enough data to determine whether human exposures are controlled or whether contaminated groundwater migration has stabilized.
Community members can find updates through the City Water Quality Page and the "What's In My Neighborhood" resource. EPA's Community Involvement Coordinator, Lina Wu, and Remedial Project Manager, Kelly Poulos, are available for questions. The Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency also have designated contacts for health, water treatment, and state investigation topics.
