Projects dredge up toxic past at sub base
Otis Willie PIO The American War Library
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view/20100104projects_dredge_up_toxic_past_at_sub_base/srvc=home&position=recent
{EXCERPT} Boston Herald, Judy Benson GROTON -- Like power-washing layers of grime off a rooftop in a sooty industrial city, the dredging projects under way this winter at the Naval Submarine...
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Jack Linthicum
<themilitaryto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Projects dredge up toxic past at sub basehttp://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view/20100104proj...
Groton is another of the bases where the idea behind keeping the area
free from contamination seems to have gone as far burying the crud on
the back 40 or pitching it over the side and letting the river do the
cleansing.
Projects dredge up toxic past at sub base
By Judy Benson / The Day, New London, Conn. | Monday, January 4,
2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Northeast
GROTON -- Like power-washing layers of grime off a rooftop in a sooty
industrial city, the dredging projects under way this winter at the
Naval Submarine Base are scooping away the silt and mess from the near-
shore river bottom after decades of military use, and unwitting abuse.
The two projects, begun last month, span a large area of the Thames
River waterfront at the base and will render it more usable for
today’s Virginia-class subs, as well as tugs and other equipment. In
all, the two projects will cost about $14 million and are removing
185,000 cubic yards of river bottom sediment -- some of it so highly
contaminated it will have to be trucked to a toxic-waste landfill out
of state.
The smaller of the two projects, in the area known as the lower base,
is the more complex, because it involves the highly polluted soils.
One day last month, as a giant claw-like shovel attached to a crane
pulled load after load of inky black muck from the dark depths,
Richard Conant, environmental program manager, described the work. The
claw was attached to a crane operated by one of the project
contractors, Mohawk Northeast.
"We saved the best for last," Conant said, as the claw opened to spill
its contents on a barge docked nearby.
The $3 million project, he said, is part of the massive cleanup of the
base that’s been taking place over the last two decades since it was
declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency. It
is the first offshore part of the project. It begins the final stage
of the cleanup, he said, which is expected to conclude by 2013.
Already more than $56 million has been spent on land-based projects to
remove and cap contaminated soils, monitor groundwater, remediate
polluted areas and do other cleanup. The pollutants are the residues
of the solvents, paints, petroleum products, metals and other
materials used on submarines, torpedoes and other equipment, and often
haphazardly discarded or allowed to spill onto the property without
regard or knowledge by the Navy crews of possible environmental
impacts, Conant said.
The dredge site, for example, sits offshore of an area where subs were
maintained from before World War II through the Cold War years of the
1960s. Oil was drained, hulls sandblasted and surfaces painted, with
paint chips, used oil and other waste allowed to wash off into the
river, without recognition of the damage being done to the
environment. The river-bottom soils are now contaminated with PCBs,
heavy metals, semi-volatile organic compounds and polyaromatic
hydrocarbons, which are carcinogenic and can cause health problems for
humans and wildlife.
"It’s a different world now," Conant said of today’s stricter
environmental rules that would not allow such indiscriminate
practices.
Samples from each load of soils dredged from the area are sent to a
laboratory for testing to determine contamination levels, said Daniel
Sullivan, program manager for Tetratech EC, the contractor overseeing
the work for the Navy. The test results determine which of three out-
of-state landfills can accept the material. Each bargeload is loaded
onto trucks, which then transport it to the landfill.
Tests of the first bargeload, which sat covered with more than a foot
of snow from late December’s blizzard, showed it was highly
contaminated, and will have to go to the disposal site able to take
the most contaminated material, Conant said.
Sullivan said plans call for the work to be completed by the end of
March.
"We’ll scrape down to the bedrock, and then do bottom sampling" to
make sure all the contamination is gone, he said.
Once complete, the area will be outfitted with finger piers to dock
tugs, Conant said.
Both this and the second dredging project are taking place during the
winter months to minimize harm to spring-migrating fish and spawning
shellfish, according to Michael Grzywinski, environmental analyst for
the state Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP granted
permits for both projects specifying the time frame for completion.
"They’re dealing with a very short window of time," he said.
The second project involves removing sediments from the shoreline
areas where the piers that berth the subs are located.
"Basically, we’re sweeping out the corners of all the berthing areas
of the active waterfront, down to the original depth of 36 feet,"
Conant said.
Considered a routine maintenance project, the area was last dredged
sometime in the 1980s, and this work should keep the area deep enough
for subs for another 15 to 20 years, said Stephen Meagher, project
engineer. The total cost of the work is about $11 million.
In addition to scraping away the sediments that have accumulated
around the piers, the project will also deepen to 55 feet the area
where the dry dock used for sub repairs and maintenance will be
relocated. Once reinstalled, the dry dock, now being retrofitted for
Virginia-class submarines, will enable the Navy to do much of its own
maintenance and repair at a lower cost than having it done at a
private contractor, Meagher added.
The soils from the maintenance dredging, which have lower levels of
pollution than the Superfund area, will be dumped in a deep basin, or
CAD cell, dug just offshore from the base in the river’s navigation
channel. The soils will then be covered with a layer of clean fill,
Conant explained.
The material removed for the CAD cell, he added, is considered
pollution-free, and will be taken by barge to a dredge spoil dump site
in Long Island Sound offshore from New Haven.
To complete the project before the spring migration and spawning
seasons, crews from the contractor hired by the Navy will be working
nonstop.
"They’ll being going 24-7," Meagher said.