MANISTIQUE — A project intended to remove contaminated sediments from the Manistique River and eventually get the river delisted as a Great Lakes Area of Concern is almost finished.

“It’s coming to an end, I guess is the best way to say it,” said Samuel Noffke of Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), the project’s manager.

The Manistique River has been considered an area of concern for decades due to its elevated polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) levels. The presence of PCB in the river was related to the use of chemicals to “de-ink” recycled paper at the city’s paper mill in the past.

The river was named an area of concern due to the beneficial use impairments that were placed on it. Most of these impairments have since been removed, but restrictions on fish consumption and navigational dredging remain.

The current dredging project began in 2016, but Noffke said work to remove contaminated materials from the river has been ongoing for decades.

According to Noffke, project contractor White Lake Dock & Dredge removed 42,500 cubic yards of sediment as part of the project. The process of dredging was finished by Oct. 14.

“Cover placement started a few days after,” he said.

The cover in question is an activated carbon-sand cover, which is being put down in areas that may have remaining PCB contamination.

“That carbon will bind to any of the residual PCBs that might be floating around down there,” Noffke said.

Approximately 211,311 square feet of cover is being placed in Manistique’s lower harbor, and about 108,948 square feet of cover is being placed in the upper harbor.

Noffke said he does not believe the process of placing cover will take much longer.

“I guess we’re kind of expecting the contractor to have another week, week and a half of cover placement,” he said.

The cover placement will mark the end of in-water work for the project. However, White Lake will have some other things to work on between now and the end of 2019.

“They’ll demobilize on the site and start some site restoration before they pull out for the winter,” Noffke said.

White Lake is aiming to be out of the site by Dec. 15 at the latest.

Noffke said the contractor will have to do additional work at the site — such as seeding the ground and removing erosion control devices — in 2020.

“There will be … final site restoration next spring, and then they’ll be done,” he said.

The dredging project has gone smoothly, Noffke said.

“It went well … I can’t really say there was any real hitches,” he said.

After the project is completed, testing for the potential removal of the Manistique River’s remaining beneficial use impairments will be able to move forward. Despite this, tests related to the fish consumption impairment will not take place any time soon.

“We’d like to wait probably about five years before we go back and check (that) fish tissue,” Noffke said.

Noffke said he is unsure when sampling for the potential removal of the navigational dredging impairment will take place, as this will be handled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“That would be on their sampling schedule,” he said.