Reilly Tar: Quick Overview
Reilly Tar’s main operation in St. Louis Park was coating logs with creosote (preserving the wood for telephone poles). It operated from 1917 to 1972. Health officials knew as early as the 1930s that the site had contaminated the groundwater via at least one well that punctured multiple aquifers from which the City of St. Louis Park draws its drinking water[i].
While soil borings done on the site indicated the presence of multiple toxic coal derivatives, most notably polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the City’s drinking water wells were not tested until 1977. Upon receiving the results indicating high concentrations of PAHs in the drinking water between 1978 and 1981[ii], officials shut down seven wells across St. Louis Park and the neighboring city of Hopkins[iii].
Several types of PAHs are known carcinogens[iv]. This is unfortunate given that PAHs are ubiquitous. They occur naturally in fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum. They are part of what makes the yummy char on grilled meats. And no surprise, they are in cigarette smoke. Even if I hadn’t consumed contaminated water as a young child, I had plenty of other places to ingest PAHs.