Emergency PCB cleanup to begin next month

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday disclosed that it will finally carry out an emergency removal of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination in Cemetery No 2 not later than August 15, 2000 to make the burial ground safe on Nov. 1.

According to Helene Takemoto, project manager of the U.S. Army Corps, the project is estimated to cost $2 million as it will involve the excavation of as much as 5,000 tons of PCB contaminated soil.

The Army Corps will use a process called indirect low thermal desorption which had used in New Jersey to clean up a former factory site located near a residential area. It has also been utilized in 10 other areas, including Superfund sites, mostly in the US mainland.

“We are going to present the technology to the public and the cleanup plan so that they can make comments before actual work begins,” said Ms. Takemoto. The Army Corps will be hiring Guam-based IT Corp. for the cleanup which is expected to be finished by Oct. 1.

Division of Environmental Quality Director Ike Cabrera said a public meeting will be held today in Tanapag village to discuss the scheduled emergency PCB removal in the cemetery. The US Environmental Protection Agency will be supervising the cleanup to ensure that the process is properly followed.

“We intend to have absolutely clean soil. This process has been designed and developed for 18 months now so we know it will work.
This is the best technology that we have found that meets all the concerns of the local people,” said Ms. Takemoto.

The equipment will be shipped to Saipan from the U.S. mainland once the local people approves the technology to be used by the Army Corps. Guam-based IT Corp. will be hired to conduct the cleanup.

In case the local people in Tanapag rejects the recommended technology, Ms. Takemoto said the cleanup will definitely be delayed since the Army Corps would have to look for a method that will be acceptable to the community.
Unfortunately, the options left for the villagers are very limited, she added.

DEQ cannot say yet whether the cemetery will be off limits to the community while the cleanup is being conducted. Mr. Cabrera said more testings will have to be conducted before the actual cleanup to find out which areas have high levels of PCB contamination.

While the Army Corps is still looking at other formerly used defense sites in the CNMI, the PCB cleanup is the agency’s main priority. In fact, a big chunk of its budget covering Hawaii, American Samoa and other areas in the Pacific will be spent for the emergency cleanup.

Norman Lovelace, manager for U.S. EPA Pacific Insular Areas, said the contractor will submit a workplan specifying how the materials will be stored in a secured manner. “The excavation will be conducted in a manner that everybody is comfortable with. Our main concern is the protection of health and environment. We have made a commitment that we will be on the site as coordinator throughout the project cleanup,” he said.

Mr. Lovelace ruled out the possibility of shipping off the PCB contaminated soil to the US mainland for treatment since such procedure is prohibited under the U.S. Customs law.

The Army Corps has encountered difficulties in carrying out on-site treatment in the cemetery specifically in looking for the best technology that will be used to remove the toxic chemical.

In June 1997, it used thermal desorption process which involved heating the soil in very high temperature to turn PCB into gas.

Unfortunately, work stopped in Sept. 1998 when Tera Therm, the company hired by the main contractor Environmental Chemical Corp., went bankrupt. Some 1,181 tons of soil in the Lower Base cemetery were treated through the thermal desorption process.

PCB contamination in the village began when an unknown quantity of capacitors containing PCBs were shipped to Saipan in the 1960s.

The electrical capacitors in the village were used as barricades, boundary markers, road blocks for driveways, windbreaks for barbecue sites and headstones. Some capacitors were found broken open as their inner phenolic linings were used to decorate rooftops and cemeteries in the village. DEQ was only notified about the presence of these capacitors in Tanapag village in 1988.