Brownfields Update for the Pacific Northwest

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.