ENVIRONMENTAL

Long Forgotten— Far From Gone

USACE scrubs away at $1 billion of environmental liability

By Isaac Stone Simonelli

With an estimated billion dollars of remediation projects left to manage in Alaska alone, it’s a long road for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Alaska District to clean up formerly used defense sites in the state. Nonetheless, the USACE–Alaska District has been steadily chipping away at the herculean effort since October 17, 1986, whittling the list of properties that need to be investigated for possible remediation from 137 to 60.

“We're working on almost forty to forty-five of those actively,” says Ken Andraschko, the USACE–Alaska District’s Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) program manager.

The FUDS program was created in the ‘80s to tackle environmental contamination at properties formerly owned, leased, possessed, or used by the military. Because of Alaska’s key strategic location, especially during World War II and the Cold War, the program is of particular importance.

“As far as priority goes, we generally do the riskiest first,” Andraschko says. “We also work in conjunction with our state regulators, the EPA, and land managers to review our sites and determine a priority status for those sites.”

Much of what is left to be investigated and cleaned up in Alaska are remote locations among the Aleutian Islands, which were rapidly developed by the military in response to the Imperial Japanese Army occupation of the Alaska islands of Attu and Kiska in June 1942.

“The less risky ones, per se, were out in the Aleutian, and that's generally what we have left,” Andraschko explains.

Cleaning Contaminants

The USACE uses a rating system when deciding what projects to tackle. It weighs a site's potential risk to human health and human safety, as well as negative environmental impacts due to contaminants.

The typical contaminants found during the investigation stage of a potentially contaminated site in Alaska include lead, oil, diesel, gas, and chlorinated solvents, explains Matthew Flynn, Ahtna Engineering’s program manager for the USACE small business environmental remediation services contract.

Ahtna Engineering has been awarded a five-year contract with USACE, which contracts out both the investigations of potentially contaminated sites and the remedial work.

“For World War II [sites], we're getting pretty good at these, we've been doing a lot of these investigations and clean ups,” Flynn says. “So, we have a pretty good list of things to go looking for, mostly petroleum products, diesel, gas, a little bit of motor oil here and there. Occasionally, we'll find a chlorinated solvent. You know, we're always on the lookout for that kind of stuff.”

Chlorinated compounds, such as tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE), are of particular concern because they are very toxic to both humans and animals at very low concentrations.

“While some fuel-related compounds are toxic at low concentrations (benzene for instance), they tend to volatilize readily and naturally remediate quickly compared to chlorinated compounds, which do neither,” Flynn says.

During the investigation process, contractors are also on the lookout for lead batteries, lead bullets, and other munitions.

Andraschko explains that USACE–Alaska District is actively working on more than 100 phases of project work. The USACE follows the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liabilities Act (CERCLA) process and additional regulatory framework.

“That covers it all the way from the preliminary investigation to the site inspection to remedial investigation, feasibility study, proposed plan, signing a decision document, and then, finally, implementing the remedial action or… long term management of the process,” Andraschko says.

Ahtna holds contracts that allow the Alaska-based company to conduct site investigations, as well as perform remedial efforts. Investigations, as well as pre-investigation work, is extraordinarily important in Alaska FUDS projects due to the high costs associated with managing projects in remote parts of the state.

“What separates us from our counterparts in the Lower 48 is there you can run to the store and grab additional supplies, if you didn’t bring it with you,” Andraschko says. “Here, our contractors, they've got to think about all the different things they need and have it all there on the site, because you just can't, you know, run over to your local hardware store or pick up another sheet of plywood.”

The logistics of the projects that are left are particularly difficult.

“We're getting into the more challenging ones, because no one really wants to tackle those because they're hard,” Flynn says. “And they're not going to be easy or cheap.”

“What separates us from our counterparts in the Lower 48 is there you can run to the store and grab additional supplies, if you didn’t bring it with you. Here, our contractors, they've got to think about all the different things they need and have it all there on the site, because you just can't, you know, run over to your local hardware store or pick up another sheet of plywood.”

Ken Andraschko, FUDS Program Manager USACE–Alaska District

Knowing What to Look For

Pre-investigation work helps contractors plan their onsite investigation and ensures better data is collected when they’re there. This is done by collecting historical aerial images and as-built photos of the sites, identifying the types of structures, where they are located, and what contaminants are likely onsite.

Shelley Williams of Mammoth Consulting completes final field survey tasks.

Ahtna

The remains of a WWII Pacific Hut.

“If it was a mess hall or a barracks, we're usually not looking for much other than say heat. So, you would expect maybe a fuel source. If you had a motor repair shop, we're usually on the lookout for more things. A lot of times you might have used solvents to clean the engine, might find battery remnants, that kind of stuff,” Flynn says. “We're always trying to craft our investigations to each building or each feature that we're trying to investigate.”

By using an app developed in conjunction with Geosyntec Consultants, Ahtna is able to overlay historical images and other relevant data on top of a map on their field iPads that are linked to GPS units.

“That allows us to see, in real time, where we are on the islands,” Flynn says. “We can flip through the images that are rectified. So we know what it looked like in 1950, or whatever our image may be.”

The primary purpose of a field investigation team being dispatched to a location is to collect data, including soil and water samples. Often, contractors such as Ahtna will outsource some of the data work to companies like Geosyntec Consultants and Arctic Data Services.

“You have to go out and collect various types of data in order to understand the problem, the environmental issues,” explains Ben Martich, principal scientist with Geosyntec Consultants. “We provide solutions to how that data are collected and stored and then ultimately transferred back to the Army Corps.”

Geosyntec Consultants has developed a single-solution app specifically to allow field operators to better log collected data.

“The higher the quality and reliability of the data, the sounder the remedial choice that will be made,” Martich says.

Rodney Guritz, the principal chemist for Arctic Data Services, agrees that quality data is vital.

“[USACE–Alaska District], they lead some of the most expensive, logistically challenging, and time sensitive cleanup projects in the world,” Guritz says. “On those projects, it's really important that you have data that's of good enough quality to base pretty major decisions on—major in terms of the risk to human health and

the environment, also major in terms of cost and taxpayer dollars.”

Arctic Data Services helps with quality assurance planning ahead of a project, the selection of the best lab for the project, and data validation, Guritz explains.

“We are pretty much involved in all aspects of data quality, except actually producing the data, and that's done by commercial labs,” Guritz says.

Given that it can cost upward of $700,000 to mobilize an investigative team to a site to collect data, accurate data is vital, notes Andraschko.

“It's imperative that you get the data and get good quality data the first time and not have to go back,” Andraschko says.

Even with the strong attempts to conduct solid pre-investigation work and collect good data in the field, there have been cases where the quality of the data has come up short of expectations, says Andraschko.

In those cases, a team is sent back out.

Mindful Remediation

While Ahtna conducts investigations for the USACE, it also carries out the remediation and cleanup efforts. Ahtna recently completed an investigation on Ogliuga Island, an uninhabited, remote island in the Aleutians.

The Army built an emergency runway on Ogliuga Island, now part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, during World War II to provide support for airplanes headed toward Japanese occupied Kiska.

Two separate one-month trips to the island allowed the team to drill and take soil samples from more than 200 separate features to determine what contaminants are present and if they are only in the soil or if they have migrated into the water table, Flynn says.

“Working in the remote parts of Alaska is always a challenge, and the COVID pandemic added even more complications. The work on Ogliuga Island in 2020 and 2021 could not have been completed without the extensive network of local Alaskabased companies,” explains Ahtna Program Manager Vivian Tokar. “The Alaska-based companies provided Alaska-based skilled professionals, local equipment, and supplies during the pandemic.”

The investigations of these sites, as well as any possible clean-up project, needs to navigate a number of additional considerations, including

“The Corps is definitely trying really hard to work on cleaning these jobs up. It's a thankless side [of their work] that you don't always see. You don't hear much about it unless it touches a community.”

Matthew Flynn, Program Manager, Ahtna

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Abandoned WWII equipment.

K. Eldridge | USACE Alaska District impacts on wildlife—Ogliuga Island has a couple seal pullouts—and the archaeological value of the area, as the sites are part of US history and sometimes connected to Alaska Native history.

“If it's sensitive enough, the USACE will bring along an archaeologist to make sure that we stay away from any culturally sensitive areas, and there are many out there in the Aleutians,” Flynn says.

The data and analysis for a project will be passed on to the USACE, regulators, and other stakeholders, often the landowner.

“Once everyone is in agreement, there may be some intermediary steps depending on whether it's CERCLA or state types of contamination, but ultimately it will result in a cleanup—if there's one required,” Flynn says.

‘Bang for Your Buck’

For Andraschko, one of the biggest successes of the FUDS program in Alaska has been increasing the efficiency of the work.

“I always hate to see a barge go out and the barge come home empty,” Andraschko says. “When it’s feasible and reasonable, we try to combine doing the source removals at the same time [as an investigation].”

This sort of combined effort on a single trip is made possible by contractors, such as Ahtna, that are capable of providing both services.

“If you spent the money to get there, you might as well try to get the best bang for your buck,” says Flynn.

While it’s one thing to deal with the logistics of mobilizing an investigation team, it’s another to organize a cleanup effort, which usually requires large equipment, including earthmovers and diggers.

“Working in Western Alaska or even Northern or Southeast, they all have their unique logistical challenges,” Flynn says. “Sometimes, we are working on projects where we literally have to use a helicopter to fly parts and people to and from these remote locations.”

Such extremes were required for a project at Cape Prominence on Unalaska Island, home to a remote radar facility during World War II.

For projects in the Aleutians, everything is brought out on a barge

or a landing craft. Once onsite, equipment is unloaded onto the beach, when possible.

“A lot of times, we build a camp and we'll live there for thirty days or so while we work,” Flynn says.

Where Does It All Go?

About 95 percent of the FUDS projects Ahtna has worked on are focused on contaminated soil.

What’s on the surface is the “biggest exposure to humans and the animals,” Flynn explains.

The soil is collected, containerized, and usually shipped to Seattle for disposal. “Technically, we could bring it to Anchorage and treat it here. But it's usually cheaper for us in the long run to send it to Seattle,” Flynn says.

Unlike soil contaminated by petroleum products, which can be dealt with in Alaska, all hazardous materials dug up during these projects have to be disposed of in the Lower 48. Usually, they are taken to the hazardous waste landfill in Arlington, Oregon.

While the clean-up and remediation process for soil contamination is relatively straightforward, contaminated groundwater is not.

“How do you clean up groundwater on an island that is 1,200 miles west of Anchorage in the middle of absolute nowhere, right? Sometimes, I'm not sure how to solve that problem,” says Flynn.

While directly treating groundwater contamination in such remote locations is rarely cost-effective or possible, Flynn points out that scraping up soil and sediment often provides a long-term solution to groundwater issues.

“If we remove the contaminated soil, in time, the groundwater will clean up, because the soil was the source,” Flynn says.

With an annual budget that ranges from $20 million to $50 million, USACE—Alaska District is continuing to quietly chip away at the environmental liabilities in the Last Frontier.

“The Corps is definitely trying really hard to work on cleaning these jobs up,” Flynn says. “It's a thankless side [of their work] that you don't always see. You don't hear much about it unless it touches a community.”

“On those projects, it's really important that you have data that's of good enough quality to base pretty major decisions on—major in terms of the risk to human health and the environment, also major in terms of cost and taxpayer dollars.”

Rodney Guritz, Principal Chemist Arctic Data Services

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