Trempealeau County Board chairman Tim Zeglin said there are lingering concerns about water quality in the creek, but he was not surprised by the lack of enforcement after meeting with DNR staff.

“There was never any doubt in my mind that this would be the eventual result,” Zeglin said. “I realized their role was to shield the mining company and paint over the near- and long-term consequences.”

Mary Jo Bork, whose land was in the path of the spill, is frustrated by the pace of the cleanup and the lack of DNR enforcement action.

“They promised us that Monday night after the spill everything was going to be back to normal. It’s taken 20 weeks … whatever window I look out, guess what I get to look at?” she said, lamenting the loss of a 4-acre prairie she planted in 2002. “Right now I should be looking at lots of purples … I see wet dirt.”

Zeglin said the incident could have been prevented and faults Hi-Crush for not alerting anyone downstream before releasing the water.

“They’re not supposed to do it but they do it — what the bulldozer operator was doing,” he said. “That guy never should have been up there.”