Feature
FUDS can be an issue of health, economics for rural Alaska
In the small city of Unalaska, Alaska, at the heart of the North Pacific and Bering Sea fisheries, officials are busy cleaning up actions of the past in hopes of creating a healthier future.
The city’s powerhouse property, on which sits a former fuel tank farm as well a power plant built during World War II as part of the nation’s defense strategy, is riddled with PCBs. The city wants to eradicate the contamination to make way for a new, larger powerhouse that would better serve its growing community. The clean up of the site will not only protect human health and the environment, but also help sustain the vital seafood industry the community of 4,000 depends upon.
Once abandoned by the federal government and then later taken over by the city, excavation is scheduled to begin later this month, says Robin Hall, director of planning for Unalaska. Hall has been working for three years to get the site to this point. She expects the cleanup process to be completed by mid-July.
However, it hasn’t been an easy process to reach, Hall says. Arguments with the federal government over who is responsible for the cleanup ensued, and estimates originally determined 60 cubic yards of contaminated dirt would need to be removed. Instead, 1,500 cubic yards will be removed. Some dirt will be taken to containment cells adjacent to a landfill. Other more contaminated dirt will be mixed with a slurry of Portland cement and then poured into existing concrete utilidors left behind by the military.
Helping the $1.3 million remediation project is a $200,000 EPA cleanup grant from the brownfields program.
In Alaska, stories like this are all too familiar. The state is peppered with these formerly used defense sites (FUDS). There are nearly 9,850 potential FUDS in the United States. With more than 600 potential FUDS, Alaska has the fourth highest number in the nation.
During World War II, many temporary military installations were constructed in remote locations because of Alaska’s strategic significance. Most are along the Alaskan coastline. However, after the war, these sites were abandoned, leaving behind oil drums, buried tanks, transformers, equipment and hundreds of buildings. The sites then were relinquished to the native or local corporations in 1986.
In many cases, these contaminated sites have brought problems that are hitting too close to home for many residents. Because some Alaskan tribes depend on subsistence activities, such as hunting on tribal lands or fishing, they’re more susceptible to exposure to these contaminants than non-subsistence communities if the environment from which they gather food is compromised.
In 1983, Congress created the Defense Environmental Restoration Program and assigned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to administer the FUDS program to clean up property no longer controlled by the Department of Defense. All sites have been prioritized for clean up. The Alaska District was the first in the nation to award contracts in this program, according to the Corps of Engineers Alaska District.
The Alaska District has identified more than 600 properties in the state that meet the criteria of the FUDS clean-up program. Of those properties, more than 100 require work under the FUDS program. And many of those properties have multiple projects that need to be cleaned up, says John Halverson of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The Alaska District reports it has more than 300 ongoing projects at those properties requiring work.
From 1984 to 2005, the Alaska District spent $535 million on the FUDS cleanup projects, with about $30 million spent annually, Halverson says. The program is expected to continue beyond 2020 with about $1 billion worth of cleanup work yet to complete, according to the Alaska District.
Serving as a supplement to the FUDS program is the brownfields program. Former military installations no longer owned or under the custody of the U.S. government, including properties that have been closed and turned over to local governments or non-profit organizations, may be eligible for brownfields funding.
"There is a potential for brownfields grants to be made available to communities that have FUDS," says Candy Walters, public affairs specialist at the Corps of Engineers headquarters in Washington, D.C.
And for rural communities such as Unalaska, this is good news. Because every little bit helps, Hall says.
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Problem Solver
EPA awards almost $71 million in grants
Communities in 38 states--including Idaho and Washington--will receive brownfields grants to help revitalize former industrial and commercial sites. Two territories and five tribal nations also will share the $70.7 million from the EPA.
"By transforming thousands of blighted sites into engines of economic rebirth, EPA's Brownfields program is proving to be one of the greatest environmental success stories of the past decade," says Administrator Stephen L. Johnson in an EPA press release.
This year, 202 applicants were selected to receive 294 assessment, revolving loan fund and cleanup grants. The $70.7 million will provide:
- 189 assessment grants totaling $36.8 million to be used to conduct site assessment and planning for eventual cleanup at one or more brownfields sites or as part of a community-wide effort
- 92 cleanup grants totaling $17.9 million to provide funding to carry out cleanup activities at brownfields sites owned by the grants’ recipients
- 13 revolving loan fund grants totaling $16 million to provide funding for communities to capitalize a revolving loan fund and to provide sub-grants to carry cleanup activities at brownfields sites. Revolving loan funds are generally used to provide low interest loans for brownfields cleanups
In Region 10, eight grants totaling more than $2 million were awarded to projects in Idaho and Washington. For a list of the grants and descriptions of their projects, visit www.epa.gov/brownfields.
There are about 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites in the country. Since the beginning of the program, EPA has awarded 1,067 assessment grants totaling more than $262 million, 217 revolving loan fund grants totaling more than $201.7 million, and 336 cleanup grants totaling $61.3 million.
In more grant-related news, EPA this year is considering moving up the cycle for the assessment, revolving loan fund and cleanup grants. In recent years grant notices were released in the late fall with applications due in December and grants announced the following May. EPA may release the grant notice much earlier for the 2008 cycle. Applications would be due 45 to 60 days after the announcement.
To receive a notice about any changes in the grant process, e-mail Brownfields.R10@epa.gov to be added to the list serve for further EPA regional notices.
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Groundwork
Vapor intrusion guidelines a starting point for states
Vapor intrusion, the migration of volatile chemicals from the subsurface into overlying buildings, is among the latest hot-button issues in the redevelopment of brownfields. As more buildings--both residential and commercial--are built upon previously contaminated lands, indoor air quality has become a big concern for the public.
In fact, poor indoor air quality causes more apprehension and anxiety among building occupants than that typically associated with other environmental problems, including poor water quality, according to a recent report by the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC).
For example, when high levels of methane were found during the Phase I and II environmental site assessments at the Bridgeport Village outdoor shopping center near Portland, Oregon, the public and the project’s developers raised many warranted concerns.
To deal with the methane, several engineering and institutional controls were put in place, delaying the project by about a year and increasing its cost by about $5 million.
Those following controls were used:
- An active gas extraction system was placed around portions of the interior and perimeter of the site at various depths to suck out the methane on the property
- A passive sub-slab venting system and a low permeability gas membrane were installed beneath each building slab
- Low permeability membrane collars or trench plugs were installed for every utility that enters or exits each building or crosses a site boundary
- Interior gas sensors and monitors were installed on buildings and closed areas that aren’t ventilated
- An ongoing process of monitoring will continue until the methane levels are at acceptable levels
Helping states deal with the issue of vapor intrusion--from how to evaluate the pathway to how to choose the mitigation--is the document “Vapor Intrusion Pathway: A Practical Guideline.” The guideline was released in January by the ITRC’s Vapor Intrusion Team, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy as well as the Department of Defense and EPA. The 172-page document is the result of a combined effort of more than 100 professionals from state and federal regulatory agencies as well as the private sector.
The how-to guideline provides a generalized framework for evaluating the pathway and a description of the various tools available for investigation, data evaluation and mitigation, according to the ITRC. It’s a resource for states to use along with their own guidelines. Both Oregon and Washington are in the process of developing their own vapor intrusion guidance documents to complement the ITRC guidance, state officials there say.
The ITRC guidance begins with an overview of vapor intrusion. It presents a 13-step approach that leads an investigator through the screening of a site to answering whether mitigation is warranted. It also gives an overview of the three general approaches to addressing vapor intrusion: site remediation, institutional controls and building mitigation.
To illustrate how to use this document, the Vapor Intrusion Team also prepared a companion piece called “Investigative Approaches for Typical Scenarios,” which describes applicable approaches for evaluating the vapor intrusion pathway under six scenarios.
Both documents are available at http://www.itrcweb.org/gd.asp.
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