Untreated runoff from a coal pile at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Charter Street Power Plant may be draining into the stormwater system — and then directly into Lake Monona — instead of into the sanitary sewer system.
If the untreated coal wash is draining into the lake — which the state Department of Administration has warned the state Department of Natural Resources may be the case — environmentalists say the pollutants could be significant, including arsenic and other heavy metals.