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PCB cleanup in private lands begins
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Posted on Nov 15 2000
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its contractor the Environmental Chemical Corp. have started the removal of soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyl located in private properties in the village.
Eleven of the 18 PCB contaminated sites identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Division of Environmental Quality are private properties.
Cleanup in the public lands have already started after the Division of Public Lands gave the go signal to the Army Corps and EEC to begin work.
The Army Corps and ECC are currently working on four sites including the former Headstart building, where some of the capacitors were formerly located.
According to Army Corps representative Edward Mau, cleanup of Cemetery 2 is almost 50 percent complete. Target date of completion for the excavation of contaminated soil in the cemetery and the village is December.
ECC has already set up eight cells of excavated soil which was more than what was originally expected to be taken in the area. Treatment of the soil is set to begin early next year using the low indirect thermal desorption process.
EPA and Army Corps have set the cleanup level at 1 ppm. The Army Corps has assured the people that the process to be used in the treatment of PCB contaminated soil is the best technology available so far.
ECC has successfully cleaned up a much larger and more complex USEPA Superfund site in New Jersey where an approximately 95,000 tons of contaminated soil was safely and successfully treated using the same process.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps will install a groundwater well in Cemetery 2 early next year to collect samples of groundwater for testing in connection with PCB contamination.
Although both the Army Corps and the EPA believe that the groundwater is not contaminated with PCB, the concerns raised by residents of Tanapag village prompted them to conduct a thorough groundwater investigation.
Groundwater to be collected will be analyzed in a laboratory in the U.S. mainland.
An administrative order issued by EPA Region IX to the US Department of Army last month specified the need for investigation of groundwater at the site. (LFR)
