Maine Gas Spill Threats Show Signs of Diminishing

By: Duane Craig

Five thousand gallons of gasoline spilled on Maine’s Route 11 in 2011. As of the end of July 2012, the remediation effort has been scaled back, according to this report.

The accident happened when a tanker truck carrying more than 8,000 gallons of gasoline rolled over near Wallagrass and spilled about 5,000 gallons. As of mid-July 2012, 2,300 gallons of gasoline had been removed and because of diminishing returns from the southern vapor extraction system, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection shut it down July 12. The northern extraction system had previously been turned off, but weather conditions prompted the department to turn it back on.

The DEP is leaving monitoring wells in place for at least another year. One local well owner had elevated levels of contaminants associated with gasoline and the well has been fitted with a carbon filtration system. Still, the DEP may require new drinking water wells to be drilled.

There’s more information from the DEP about this accident here.

Cleanup at Aircraft Manufacturing Site Enters Final Stages

The contamination story on a 26-year-old site is winding down to what could be the final public comment period. The site, called the Boeing Wichita Site in Wichita, Kan., now has a draft Corrective Action Decision that tells what remediation will finally close the book on pollution left over from years of airplane construction, according to this report.

The site at 3801 Oliver St. and the surrounding area was home to aircraft manufacturing beginning in the 1930s. In 1985, Boeing noticed contamination while it was performing an environmental investigation. Originally, the source of the contaminants was suspected to originate solely at a Cessna plant nearby. But as more test wells were drilled, it became apparent the pollution was widespread. Next, private water wells came up contaminated in the 31st and Clifton Street area. The primary contaminants detected were tetrachloroethene (PCE); trichloroethene (TCE); cis-1, 2 dichloroethene (cis-1, 2-DCE); vinyl chloride (VC); benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene(s) (BTEX); and chromium, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment documents.

To its credit, Boeing took an aggressive and active part in the investigations and remediation over the years, no doubt helping to prevent the site from falling under the Superfund program for lack of cleanup funds. The company currently operates “179 recovery wells, 195 monitoring wells and 9 air stripper sites.” It installed a “300-foot long by 30-foot deep groundwater interceptor trench to recover off-site groundwater contamination immediately upgradient of two springs ... at the northwest edge of the site,” and installed “more than a dozen air-strippers to remove TCE dissolved in recovered groundwater which is then discharged to the Arkansas River through a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit or is treated at the Spirit Industrial Waste Treatment Plant (IWTP) and recycled for use in the Spirit plant.”

Besides continuing the air stripping operations, remedial action will also include bio-remediation in place and the maintenance of permeable reactive barriers to mitigate further spread of existing soil-based contamination. In cases where it’s necessary, remedial soil removal and disposal will be on the cleanup agenda.

by: Duane Craig

Mayor To Shut Most of TX City's Fuel Stations

October 3, 2010 - Mayor Annise Parker plans to shut down two-thirds of the city's 99 fueling stations, a cost-cutting measure intended to reduce the city's potential liability for leaking contaminants.

While the closures will save the city in the long run, the process of removing underground fuel storage tanks can be expensive. The price skyrockets if underground tanks are found to be leaking fuel or oil, requiring expensive remediation to dispose of contaminated soil to safeguard surrounding neighborhoods. In some cases, monitoring wells have to be drilled to make sure the leaking fuel products have not contaminated the groundwater under the sites.

In the last three years, the city has paid private contractors $5.8 million to replace underground storage tanks at city fire and police stations, public works facilities and parks. A number of the sites where tanks had leaked had to undergo extensive soil removal and other remediation efforts, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

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Brookhurst, MT Cleanup ‘Nearing Completion’

September 2, 2010 - A two-decade effort to address groundwater contamination at the Brookhurst subdivision near Casper could enter its final stage this fall.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed certain restrictions for two neighboring industrial properties it deemed responsible for the contamination. If those proposals go through, the EPA hopes to begin removing parts of the site from the federal Superfund list later this year.

“We are not at the total end, but we are nearing completion,” said EPA Remedial Project Manager Frances Costanzi. “The great majority of the work has been completed.”

The area received federal Superfund designation in 1990, four years after tests revealed pollution inside drinking-water wells in the Brookhurst subdivision east of Casper. Authorities tied the contamination to a pair of groundwater plumes that originated from the nearby Kinder Morgan gas compression plant and Dow Chemical/Dowell Schlumberger oil field services facility.

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TCE Cleanup of Former NY IBM Facility Progressing

August 25, 2010 - Contamination cleanup efforts near the former IBM facility in Endicott are progressing ahead of schedule, but there is still plenty of work to do, state and IBM officials said Wednesday.

The company and the state Department of Environmental Conservation gave presentations on the remediation process to about 20 people during a public meeting at Union-Endicott High School.

IBM has been held responsible for the cleanup of trichloroethylene (TCE) pollution surrounding its former facility on North Street. TCE is a cleaning solvent used heavily by industry decades ago, and the pollution stretches into a large part of the village.

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Contaminated Byram Properties May Be Eligible For Superfund Money

August 4, 2010 - Eighteen homes between the East Brookwood section of Byram and Sparta-Stanhope Road are contaminated with tricloroethylene.

Mel Hauptman from the Environmental Protection Agency Superfund explained what tricloroethylene is at a public meeting on July 29. He said it is a known hazardous substance commonly used as a solvent to remove oil and grease from metal and machinery. It's also used in spot removers and adhesives. It dissolves in water and can travel as a plume in underground aquifers for long periods of time. Tricloroethylene evaporates from surface water relatively quickly, producing hazardous fumes.

According to the EPA's Web site, possible health effects range from nausea and headaches to liver damage, heart conditions, various cancers, impaired fetal development and death.

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