Ongoing efforts to remove contaminated soil from the site of the Byford junkyard are about a third of the way complete, according to Sally Schlichting with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The soil is being packed into large bags specially designed to carry soil and is being shipped to a landfill in Oregon.
Schlichting explained that the soil at the junkyard site was heavily contaminated with lead, as well as with some petroleum and trace amounts of other chemicals. The lead was neutralized, she said, with a chemical called EcoBond.
“The phosphates bond with [the lead in] the soil and keep it immobile,” she said.
Lisa Von Bargen and Carol Rushmore with Wrangell City Hall went into some history of the Byford junkyard cleanup. The need to clean the site became apparent many years ago, they said, when the EPA found high levels of lead contamination in the area, which had leached into the ground and spread across Zimovia Highway into the beach nearby. The DEC is entirely responsible for the cleanup, they said, and that it was costing the city nothing.
Esther Ashton, tribal administrator with the Wrangell Cooperative Association, said that the original plan was for the DEC to ship all the soil off of the island. However, she said, funding for the project had been diverted. Schlichting added that there was much more soil to transport than they had originally anticipated. The DEC looked for on-island ways to handle the soil, and the idea of using a monofill approximately a quarter mile from Pats Creek to store the soil was suggested.
“There were a few issues,” Ashton said. “The first issue that the tribe had was the lack of public knowledge,
involvement, and participation in the process. The DEC, when they did the project, did the planning and chose the
location without any public participation … The second issue is that this location is right in the midst of traditional subsistence areas. It’s an area where our tribal citizens go for hunting, for fishing, they go there to collect medicinal plants and pick berries. It’s also one of the most highly utilized recreation areas in our community.”
Schlichting said that with the EcoBond, the soil was fairly safe. However, if one were to ingest it they could be exposed to some lead. She said that, as EcoBond used phosphate to neutralize the lead, it could promote heavy plant growth. If it got into water, though, it could also hurt oxygen levels in the water or cause algae blooms. It was decided to continue to move the soil off the island, and Governor Bill Walker asked for an additional $5 million to be added to the DEC’s spill response fund to continue the project.
Schlichting said that, as of Aug. 22, over 13,000 bags have been filled, and 280 have been shipped to the landfill in Arlington, Oregon. She said that they expect all the soil to be stored in late September or early October, and completion of the project will be around the middle of October.
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