COLUMBIA, S.C. — Dominion Energy crews were back to work alongside the Congaree river Wednesday as the second phase of the coal tar clean up project is under way.
According to Lucas Berresford, the Program Manager with DHEC's State Voluntary Cleanup Section, the multi-year project comes after coal tar was discovered from a factory that was depositing harmful material into the river as runoff.
"During that time, lots of waste material was released through a stream and out into the river where it settled down into the bottom of the Congaree."
The first year of the project wrapped up in October, which consisted of building a cofferdam along the impacted section of the river, if you've traveled past the work zone, you've no doubt seen the large area blocked off. Berresford says the next step, which kicked off this week, starts by removing the water from the dam.
"To get down to the sediments, they have to remove all of the water and dry things so then they can pull the sediments back." He expands, "Going into this season, the goal is to complete the removal from the area behind the cofferdam and take down the phase one cofferdam"
He adds the goal is remove that large dam by the end of the year and have a smaller one built further down the river.
"It'll be about a fourth the size of the existing one now, a little further down toward Blossom Street."
The progress has some, like Xinyi Meng who spent the afternoon using the Riverwalk, excited. She says it's nice to see the area being cleaned up, even if it means some large construction
It thought it was like bridge, but then after knowing more about it, thought that was really cool." She adds, "It's doing it's purpose of cleaning the water."
And though this tar-like substance may sound threatening, Berresford assures any who might be worried, the material is not harmful to the water, the animals in the river, or to humans.
"These contaminants aren't ones that bioaccumulate in fish or anything like that so there's no risk. We haven't seen anything in some of the fish samples that have been taken from the Congaree that have shown anything."
Berresford also tells News19 crews will be working to recover any historic artifacts that might be found when digging through the bottom of the river.
More updates on the progress of the project can be found here.