New Superfund plan needed for NAS

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Florida
PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL
New Superfund plan needed for NAS
Pollution slow to dissipate
Elizabeth Bluemink, ElizabethBluemink@PensacolaNewsJournal.com
February 15, 2004

The Navy needs a new cleanup plan for a Superfund site at Pensacola
Naval Air Station.

Likely within a year, the Navy will revise its cleanup of the 85- acre
landfill, which has allowed iron to seep into nearby wetlands, and vinyl
chloride, a carcinogen, to migrate north toward Bayou Grande in the
groundwater.

The pollution does not pose an urgent health risk because the
contamination is nowhere near the portion of the local aquifer used for
drinking water, said EPA cleanup manager Gena Townsend. The air
station's water is supplied by Corry Station, three miles away.

Navy tests show that the landfill's chemical plume has migrated north at
least 55 feet from Bayou Grande's coastline, and also to the east, under
the air station's A.C. Read Golf Course.

The original plan called for allowing the pollution to naturally filter
in the groundwater for 30 years, but the pollution levels have not
dissipated as the plan predicted.

In 1998, the Navy and federal and state environmental regulators agreed
that natural attenuation would reduce the pollution to safe levels in
the groundwater by 2003 and eliminate it completely in 30 years.

"It just isn't happening as quickly as we expected," said Greg Campbell,
an environmental engineer at the air station.

Navy contractors are expected to finish a list of new cleanup options
withhe next two to three months.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/021504/Local/ST005.shtml

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