A shorter version of this article appeared on pp. 1–4 of the Summer 2018 print edition.Efforts to clean up contaminated sites from military installations and other sources have been ongoing in Alaska since the 1980s, and new sites continue to be identified. Most Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) properties are in remote locations, placing a disproportionate impact on Alaska Native communities that depend upon environmental resources for their livelihood. Cleanup projects that are begun may take many years to complete due to the complicated nature of each site. Since 1990, over 5,300 sites have been cleanup up; more than 2,200 sites remain open, including military installations (both abandoned and active), bulk fuel storage and gas stations, airports and airfields, maintenance facilities, and oil exploration, transport, and refining facilities.Superfund and FUDS /
Multiple projects and parties /
FUDS closure but site still open /
DEC closed sites vs. open sites /
Assessing risk /
[Sidebar:] Cleanup in rural Alaska is expensive and complicated /
Liability and costs of cleanup /
Financing assessment and remediation /
Federal funds /
Reference

Cravez, Pamela

Williams, Paula

English

ScholarWorks@UA

1Alaska Justice Forum 35(1), Summer 2018, online editionVOL. 35, NO. 1SUMMER 2018Environmental justice: Challenges of contaminated site cleanup in rural AKContaminated sites in Alaska, FY 2017. Contaminated Sites Database, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (http://dec.alaska.gov/spar/csp.aspx).Paula Williams and Pamela CravezWhile working in Western Alaska a decade ago, residents of Elim, a small village near Nome on the Bering Sea, told Paula about how they had stopped fishing and hunting near an abandoned military site. When the military closed the site, they dug a big hole and buried everything.  Now, the fish in the river and animals near the abandoned site “were no longer healthy and were unsafe to eat,” one resident told Paula.At the time, efforts to clean up hazardous wastes left by the abandoned military site at Moses Point had been going on for more than 20 years. Cleanup continues today.Rural communities in Alaska, which rely greatly upon the environment for their live-lihood, are disproportionately impacted by environmental contamination. These com-munities also struggle more to get the re-sources to have contaminated sites cleaned.Alaska is ranked third in the United States for the number of properties eligible for cleanup under the Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) program. Many of the proper-ties were contaminated during World War II, or during the Cold War, when the long-term effects of chemicals were not understood, and the accepted means of disposal was to bury or abandon anything that was too ex-pensive to transport out of Alaska.Most of these properties are in remote locations. Cleanup projects that are begun may take many years to complete due to the complicated nature of each site, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE, 2015).XXSuperfund and FUDSIn the 1980s, Congress created programs such as the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund, and the Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) program, to provide oversight, coordination, and funding to address abandoned or uncon-trolled hazardous waste from military, civil-ian, commercial and other sources. However, the breadth, complexity and cost of cleanup is no match for funds available, especially in rural Alaska (Hogan, Christopherson, & Rothe, 2006; EPA, 2018a; USACE, n.d. (b)).As of the end of 2017, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had spent about $980 million on FUDS investigation and cleanup work, according to John Budnik, Public Affairs Specialist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-neers — Alaska District. The estimated cost for cleanup of all remaining known FUDS projects in Alaska is $1.4 billion. Funding for 2018 is $35 million, according to Budnik, who provided the following accounting of FUDS properties.• 535 Formerly Used Defense Site proper-ties in Alaska• 137 eligible for cleanup*• 73 properties closed• 64 properties open, each with multipleprojects• 175 projects identified*FUDS covers only lands that were trans-ferred out of Department of Defense (DoD) Alaska is ranked third in the U.S. for Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) properties, most of which are in remote locations.A shorter version of this article appeared in the Summer 2018 print edition.2 Alaska Justice Forum 35(1), Summer 2018, online editioncontrol prior to October 17, 1985 and con-tamination was caused during the DoD time-frame of use. Cleanup of lands still owned by the federal government or civilian agencies that were never used by the DoD are under that agency’s jurisdiction for cleanup.XXMultiple projects and partiesIt is difficult to get a handle on the scope of contaminated sites in Alaska. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is responsible for overseeing cleanup of contaminated sites. The DEC database in-cludes Formerly Used Defense Sites as well as sites being cleaned up by other federal, state, and local agencies, private companies, nonprofits, and individuals in Alaska. How-ever, a site may be a Superfund site, such as Adak, with 403 files. A site could also be just one file, documenting the removal of an un-derground fuel tank on residential property. In addition, multiple parties may be respon-sible for cleanup of a site, with the site re-maining open until all parties have finished the cleanup to levels approved by DEC.A good example of how difficult it is to assess the extent of contaminants is Moses Point. Cleanup at Moses Point began in 1985, under the Formerly Used Defense Sites Pro-gram (FUDS). Rusted out asphalt drums had been oozing their contents onto the bank of Devil’s Slough for years. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos, solvents, anti-freeze, tar waste, and soil contaminants in-cluding fuel and metals were detected. The site was closed in 2006 (DEC, 2006) per FUDS and DEC standards.XXFUDS closure but site still openIn 2007, Elim residents told a reporter from the Washington Post that they didn’t believe the cleanup had been effective. Former Elim Mayor Paul Nagaruk noted that many of the elders who had lived near Moses Point, an important Inupiat Eskimo fishing site, had died of cancer. “Another camp nearby didn’t have access to Moses Point. They lived a lot longer and died of natural causes,” Nagaruk said (Lee, 2007).While the FUDS cleanup has ended at Mo-ses Point, two more cleanups are still open, one opened in 1999 another in 2010, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) taking responsibility for these. The file re-flects that the contaminants currently being addressed are from the WWII Army Garrison “[T]here is now a future and perhaps imminent risk of contaminants migrating from several contaminated source areas at Moses Point into adjacent surface water.” — DECFigure 1. DEC accounting of contaminated sites in Alaska6.2.1 CHART 1: CUMULATIVE ACTIVE AND CLOSED SITES010002000300040005000600070008000NUMBER OF SITESFISCAL YEARActive Sites Total Closed SitesSource: Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Spill Prevention and Response Division Integrated Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17), p. 54.Figure 2. Active contaminated sites in Alaska by category, FY17                                                       0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800Military installation 752Bulk fuel storage / gas station / power generation 294Airport / airfield / navigation 222Maintenance yard / shop 163Oil exploration / transport / refining 149Reisdence 124Waste / salvage / disposal 123Commercial / retail / office 111Hospital / clinic / school / institution 109Mining / logging operation 99Park / recreation area 27Telecommunications 24Agriculture / seafood processing 20Laundry / dry cleaner 17Railroad operation 13Harbor / port / marina 9Chemical manufacturing / storage 8Source: Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Spill Prevention and Response Division Integrated Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17), p. 58.3Alaska Justice Forum 35(1), Summer 2018, online editionat Moses Point. The current cleanup is on land owned by the FAA and therefore the responsibility of that agency. In 2015, DEC noted that it “believes there is now a future and perhaps imminent risk of contaminants migrating from several con-taminated source areas at Moses Point into adjacent surface water.” (DEC, 2018b). As of May 31, 2018, DEC continued to have con-cerns about contaminants at Moses Point. The agency is working with the FAA on final-izing a cleanup plan (DEC, 2018b).As cleanup of Moses Point continues, so too does exposure to contaminants among people, plants and animals in the area. (See “Long-term impacts of environmental con-taminants are ‘generational game chang-er’,” p. 7).XXDEC closed sites vs. open sitesDEC has identified more than 7,600 con-taminated sites in the state, with more added each year. Since 1990, over 5,300 sites have been closed. More than 2,200 sites remain open (DEC, 2017: 54; see Figure 1). Closed sites include those cleaned to a level that provides for unrestricted use or closed with “institutional controls” such as deed re-strictions. One third, 33 percent, of open sites are from military installations (752) including abandoned and active.  Other top active sites are from bulk fuel storage and gas stations, airport and airfield, maintenance facilities, and oil exploration, transport and refining (Figure 2). It is difficult to do a direct com-parison of FUDS properties and DEC sites. Properties, projects, and sites have different names in different databases.Many of these sites are in rural Alaska where transportation challenges, sparse population, and short summer work season hinder cleanup.XXAssessing riskWith so many projects, it is necessary to prioritize work, according to USACE’s Geist. Once a year, USACE FUDS project personnel meet with the DEC to jointly prioritize proj-ects. Projects are ranked high, medium, and low for the risk they pose to human health and the environment. Resources are focused on sites ranked as high priority. There are more than 500 high priority sites (Figure 3).Figure 3. Progress on high priority contaminated sites in Alaska, FY176.2.1 CHART 2: PROGRESS ON HIGH PRIORITY SITESChart two depicts the number of high priority sites over the past five years, and those which had measureable forward progress to address site risks.65%70%75%80%85%90%95%01002003004005006007002013 2014 2015 2016 2017NUMBER OF SITESFISCAL YEARTotal High Priority Sites High Priority Sites with progressHigh Priority sites with no progress Percent of High Priority Sites with progressSource: Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Spill Prevention and Response Division Integrated Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17), p. 56.Superfund Program criteria for selecting a remedy CERCLA requires USACE to evaluate a elected remedy using nine criteria that include overall protection of human health and the envi-ronment, compliance with applicable requirements (cleanup levels), long-term effectiveness and permanence, short-term effectiveness, reduction in toxicity/mobility/volume through treatment, implementability, costs of cleanup, community acceptance, and state regulatory acceptance. These criteria must be “balanced” when picking a remedy, Geist said. These criteria must be “balanced” when picking a rem-edy, according to Lisa Geist, Acting FUDS Program Manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska. The nine criteria are part of the National Contingency Plan (40 CFR 300.430(e)(9)).The national goal of the remedy selection process is to select remedies that are protective of human health and the environment, that maintain protection over time, and that minimize untreated waste. The nine evaluation criteria are as follows:XXThreshold criteria1. Protect human health and the environ-ment2. Comply (attain or waive) with other federal and state law — applicable or relevant and appropriate require-ments. XXBalancing criteria3. Long-term effectiveness and perma-nence4. Reduction of waste toxicity, mobility or volume5. Short-term effectiveness6. Implementability7. CostXXModifying criteria8. State acceptance9. Community acceptance(40 CFR 300.430(a)(1)(i)); Walker, 2009)4 Alaska Justice Forum 35(1), Summer 2018, online editionIt is difficult for DEC to provide an estimate of what it would take to cleanup all known sites in Alaska since there are so many vari-ables involved in cleanups and the scope of known contaminated sites continues to grow.Paula Williams, J.D., Ph.D., currently works for the Center for Resilient Communities at the University of Idaho. Paula does research in Social Psychology, Systems Biology and So-cial Theory.Pamela Cravez, J.D., M.F. A., is editor of the Alaska Justice Forum.XXReferences40 CFR Part 300.  National Oil and Hazard-ous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan [National Contingency Plan].  (https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?tpl=/ecfr-browse/Title40/40cfr300_main_02.tpl).Alaska Statutes 46.03.822. Strict Liability for the Release of Hazardous Substances. (http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/stat-utes.asp#46.03.822).Alaska Department of Environmental Con-servation (DEC). (2006). “Site Report: Mo-ses Point FUDS” (website). Updated 17 Aug 2006. Alaska Department of Environmen-tal Conservation, Division of Spill Preven-tion and Response. (http://dec.alaska.gov/Applications/SPAR/PublicMVC/CSP/SiteRe-port/848).—————.  (2014). Ecoscoping Guidance: A Tool for Developing an Ecological Site Model. Alaska Department of Environmen-tal Conservation, Division of Spill Preven-tion and Response. (http://dec.alaska.gov/spar/csp/guidance_forms/docs/ecoscoping-guidancemarch2014sefinal%203-20-14.pdf).—————. (2017). Spill Prevention and Re-sponse Division Integrated Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17). Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Spill Prevention and Response. (http://dec.Closed sites include those cleaned to a level that provides for unrestricted use or closed with “institutional controls” such as deed restrictions.Cleanup in rural Alaska is expensive and complicatedLaws governing environmental cleanup have three stages: Identifi-cation, assessment, and remediation. When comparing similar sites in remote and urban areas, each step is more expensive and compli-cated if the site is remote.“If funds are available, the cleanup usually happens quickly — if they are not, it delays how quickly cleanup happens,” according to Lisa Griswold, Environmental Specialist with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).The cost of cleanup can impact the timeline and thoroughness of cleanup as well. It is usually more expensive to clean a site to a level needed for unrestricted use than a level with institutional controls that limit future exposure to residual contaminants.Remoteness is a big factor, Griswold said.On-site treatment may be feasible for some contaminants, but certain hazardous wastes cannot go to a landfill in Alaska, accord-ing to Griswold. Not only is it expensive to transport contaminants out of rural Alaska, it is expensive to transport remediation special-ists, equipment and supplies into remote locations.XXLiability and costs of cleanupThe owner or occupant of land on which contamination occurs is strictly liable for release of hazardous substances (AS §46.03.822). Current owners/operators, along with past owners/operators, can be held liable, either separately or together.Small rural communities typically have fewer financial and human resources to address remediation issues.  If the contamination is caused by a local business, the community may be reluctant to bring the problem to the attention of regulatory agencies. The concern may be that costs to the owner could close the business or reduce the number of community members that it employs.Some of the land conveyed to Alaska Native corporations as part of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was contami-nated before transfer.  It is only within the past year that Alaska Na-tive corporations were exempted from liability for contamination on these lands.XXFinancing assessment and remediationIf a responsible party cannot be located or afford to pay for the cleanup, DEC may, under certain circumstances, step in and provide funding, according to Griswold.“We need to show there is a real threat to health or the environ-ment. Either an ongoing release, current exposure, or a threatened release,” Griswold said.XXFederal fundsThe EPA’s Brownfield Program provides some funds to support re-development or reuse of property which may be complicated by the presence of contaminants. Although Congress increased the limits on certain categories of funds for cleanup this year, no extra money has been given to the program to support the increases. “The larg-est projects in a given year are usually not more than $100,000,” according to Griswold (EPA, 2018c). (See “Expanded Brownfields Program supports redevelopment in Alaska,” p. 10.)The Department of Defense established the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program (NALEMP) to address con-tamination and adverse impacts to tribal lands or trust resources from past military activities (USACE, n.d. (a)).  Entities eligible for help include Native Corporations, federally recognized tribes, and local governments.While guidance and funds are available to address remediation of contaminated sites in Alaska, funding falls far short of the need.5Alaska Justice Forum 35(1), Summer 2018, online editionalaska.gov/media/2052/fy17-spar-annual-report.pdf).—————. (2018a). “Contaminated Sites Database” (website). Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Spill Prevention and Response. (http://dec.alaska.gov/spar/csp.aspx).—————. (2018b). “Site Report: FAA Mo-ses Point” (website). Updated 31 May 2018. Alaska Department of Environmen-tal Conservation, Division of Spill Preven-tion and Response. (http://dec.alaska.gov/Applications/SPAR/PublicMVC/CSP/SiteRe-port/24945).Budnik, John, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs, email communication (June 20, 2018).Hogan, Mimi; Christopherson, Sandra; & Rothe, Ann. (2006). Formerly Used Defense Sites in the Norton Sound Region: Loca-tion, History of Use, Contaminants Present, and Status of Clean-up Efforts. Anchorage, AK: Alaska Community Action on Toxics. (https://acatcdn-earthwebtechnolo.netd-na-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Norton_Sound_FUDS_report_2006.pdf).Lee, Jeannette J. (24 Aug 2007). “$1B Clean-up of Alaska Bases Drags On.”  Washing-ton Post. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082401785_pf.html).U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (2015). “Environmental Restoration at For-merly Used Defense Sites: Alaska Program Initiatives.” (brochure). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District.—————. (n.d. (a)). “Alaska District: Envi-ronmental Services Program” (website). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (http://www.poa.usace.army.mil/Missions/Environmen-tal-Services/).—————. (n.d. (b)). “Formerly Used De-fense Sites Program [FUDS]” (website). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/Environmental/Formerly-Used-Defense-Sites/).U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (2018a). “Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) [Superfund] and Federal Facili-ties” (website). Updated 29 Jan 2018. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/comprehen-sive-environmental-response-compensa-tion-and-liability-act-cercla-and-federal).—————. (2018b). “Search for Superfund Sites Where You Live” (website). Updated 4 Jun 2018. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (https://www.epa.gov/superfund/search-superfund-sites-where-you-live).—————. (2018c). “Overview of the Brownfields Program” (website). Updated 29 Mar 2018. U.S. Environmental Protec-tion Agency. (https://www.epa.gov/brown-fields/overview-brownfields-program).Walker, Stuart. (2009). “U.S. EPA’s Models for Establishing Cleanup Levels in Soil, Water, Buildings and Streets at Superfund Sites” (Powerpoint). Slide presentation presented at the International Atomic Energy Agency EMRAS II Workgroup “NORM & Legacy Sites”, Vienna, Austria, 23 Sep 2009. (https://www-ns.iaea.org/downloads/rw/projects/emras/emras-two/first-technical-meeting/second-working-group-meeting/working-group-presentations/workgroup2-presen-tations/presentation-wg2-us-epa.pdf).© Copyright 2018 Justice Center, University of Alaska AnchorageUAA is an AA/EO employer and educational institution and prohibits illegal discrimination against any individual: www.alaska.edu/titleIXcompliance/nondiscrimination.

Environmental Justice: Challenges of Contaminated Site Cleanup in Rural AK

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Environmental Justice: Challenges of Contaminated Site Cleanup in Rural AK

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