Cleanup begins at Superfund site in Esko

Two parking lots in downtown Esko are the site of the latest Superfund cleanup in Carlton County.

The site in Esko amounts to the Post Office and its lot, plus another lot used as an auxiliary student parking lot by Esko High School during the school year.

Similar to the Frank Lloyd Wright gas station in Cloquet, dry cleaning chemicals are the main culprit. A building on the site that was first a creamery, then a coin-operated dry cleaner, was demolished in the 1980s. Chemicals used in dry cleaning left behind contaminants, including mainly perchloroethylene, aka PCE or tetrachloroethylene. Ex...