With thousands of truckloads of the material spread on his site, Ruedebusch said he was stunned to learn it was contaminated.

“My first reaction was, ‘BS,’ ” he said. “We were obviously concerned and disheartened. We certainly wouldn’t have brought it there if we thought there was something wrong with it. We wouldn’t spend millions of dollars to decontaminate a site just to recontaminate it.”

Even so, responsibility for complying with the law rests with the property owner, Hanefeld said. “The property owner did not request written approval from the DNR to bring that material to the Royster site.”

Ruedebusch said he considered suing the state but decided it would be costly and time-consuming, with no assurance of success. Instead, he’s worked with the DNR to manage the fill and move the project forward.

It’s not uncommon for certain levels of PAH contamination to be left on a construction site as long as it’s under an impervious surface, DNR documents say. The contamination is of concern for workers during construction, but the threat can be addressed with common safety precautions.

Ruedebusch moved about 30,000 cubic yards of the fill to the Stoughton Road-Cottage Grove Road interchange project, where it was safely capped.