Money spent by Wisconsin investigating a power company's contamination on the shore of Lake Superior has been returned in an out of court settlement Wednesday. Mike Simonson reports.

Xcel Energy agreed to pay $1.3 million dollars to the state. Xcel Energy owns the site of the former Northern States Power Company coal gasification plant, now a federal Superfund site covering 20 acres on Ashland's waterfront. Attorney General spokesman Dean Stensberg says the state agreed that NSP probably wasn't the only polluter at that industrial site.

"If everybody's going 75 and you're the guy that gets pulled over, well, you were going 75. Now, there's a bunch of guys who were going 75 too but they didn't get stopped. There may be other folks who were responsible for it, but for some reason they can apparently prove that NSP was liable."

The pollution there dates back to the 1880's. Jamie Dunn is the project manager for the DNR at the Ashland site. He says whatever the case, the settlement is important.

"The money goes back into the environmental fund which funds other investigations and clean-ups. With the current economic environment, it's good to have it in there. It allows us to do more good work."

That site has been under study for 20 years with a large-scale clean-up plan set to be released probably next month.

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