La Crosse’s plan for removing lead from marsh not enough to satisfy Wisconsin DNR

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wants La Crosse to try harder.

The DNR turned down a proposal from La Crosse city leaders for removing lead shotgun pellets from the La Crosse River marsh bottom, near the former gun club shelter at Myrick Park. 

Last year, the Board of Public Works endorsed a $500,000 cleanup plan, but the DNR said it was not aggressive enough. 

Consultant John Storlie said the state agency had other ideas in mind.

Among those ideas, he said they wanted the, “removal of hot spots, the higher levels of lead contamination, as well as some sort of actions such as a thin cover of clean sand on top of all areas of lead contamination.”

In 2015, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse study found high levels of lead in the marsh bottom from the gun pellets left in the water after decades of target shooting in Myrick Park.