RAB Meeting Notes template

A view of Downtown Adak, overlooking Sweeper Cove

April 19, 2006

The meeting was held at the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) office in Anchorage and the NAVFAC NW office at Subase Bangor in Silverdale, Washington, as well as via telephone connections to Adak and Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and Olympia, Port Orchard and Vashon Island, Washington. The following people were in attendance:

Name	Affiliation	Location
Violet Pearl	Community Co-Chair	Adak, AK
Mark Wicklein	Navy Co-Chair	Silverdale, WA
Michael Mitchell	RAB Community Member	Anchorage, AK
Mike Durfee	RAB Community Member	Adak, AK
Charles Lyon	Adak Community Member	Adak, AK
Char Gisvold	RAB Community Member	Dutch Harbor, AK
Christy Despars	Aleut Enterprise LLC	Anchorage, AK
Jason Weigle	ADEC	Anchorage, AK
Jacques Gusmano	EPA	Anchorage, AK
Jennifer Currie	AK DOL	Anchorage, AK
John Nickels	AK Department of Commerce	Anchorage, AK
Paul Hanneman	PH 7 Logistics	Anchorage, AK
Jim Pastorick	UXO Pro, Ltd.	Anchorage, AK
Jim Brown	Navy RPM	Silverdale, WA
Mark Murphy	Navy MEC	Port Orchard, WA
Gary Simmons	Navy RPM	Silverdale, WA
JoAnn Grady	Grady & Associates	Anchorage, AK
Michael Meyer	URS	Vashon Island, WA
Bill Rohrer	URS	Olympia, WA
Mary Lou Sullivan	URS	Silverdale, WA

Welcome and Opening Remarks:

Mark Wicklein called the meeting to order at approximately 6:05 p.m. (Adak time). Since there was a quorum of Adak RAB members participating, the minutes from the previous RAB meeting (Oct. 19, 2005) were approved without comment or changes. (Note: a later discussion concerns a revision to these meeting minutes).

M. Wicklein proceeded to the next item on the agenda, the summary of the Proposed Actions for the 2006 Adak Field Season.

Navy Planned Work Summary for 2006 Adak Field Season

Mark Wicklein summarized the planned field work for 2006 as follows:

Petroleum and Landfill Site Remedies / Repairs

Summary: Product recovery trenches will be installed at South of Runway 18-36 and SWMU 62. A 1,500 cubic yard petroleum-contaminated soil pile will be removed from Bering Hill. Product recovery equipment will be installed in wells at NMCB, South of Runway 18-36 and SWMU 62. Petroleum-contaminated soil (if present) will be removed from the Tango Pad spill site.

In addition to the petroleum-related work, Metals Landfill and Roberts Landfill caps will be repaired. Rommel stakes will be removed between Roberts Landfill and the Seabee Pit. All wastes will be transferred off-island for disposal.

Contractor: TetraTech

On-Island Dates: May 2006 to October 2006

Number of Field Personnel Required: 10 to 20
Area 303 Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS)

Summary: A past study performed by the USGS has identified this area as having an undefined groundwater contaminant plume. A subsurface investigation will define the quantity and limits of contamination between GCI and SWMU 62. A subsurface investigation of the Tango Pad spill area will also be performed, in order to identify the quantity and limits of contamination there.

The contractor will also abandon 61 groundwater monitoring wells at various locations. Lastly, 8 new monitoring wells will be installed at NMCB, 7 at South of Runway 18-36 and 4 at SWMU 62. These wells will be used for monitoring and product recovery.

Contractor: URS

On-Island Dates: May 2006 to July 2006

Number of Field Personnel Required: 4 (2 crews of 2 people)
Rifle Grenade Range (RG-01)

Summary: Clearance of the Rifle Grenade (RG-01) site in the access-restricted area (Parcel 4), adjacent to Lake Andrew.

Contractor: USA Environmental

On-Island Dates: approximately late-June to late-July

Number of Field Personnel Required: 20
Free-Product Recovery

Summary: Petroleum product will be removed from numerous recovery wells by passive skimming at the NMCB, South of Runway 18-36 and SWMU 62 sites.

Contractor: Sealaska -TetraTech (SES-Tech)

On-Island Dates: September 2006 (1 month), October 2006 to September 2007 (1 week per month)

Number of Field Personnel Required: 2 people / sampling event
Long-Term Monitoring

Summary: Annual monitoring of 28 sites and over 200 locations. Work occurs in accordance with a comprehensive monitoring plan.

Contractor: SES Tech

On-Island Dates: September 2006 to October 2006 (4 weeks)

Number of Field Personnel Required: 4 to 6
Institutional Controls Site Inspection

Summary: Inspect 47 sites to ensure institutional controls remain effective and reliable.

Contractor: SES-Tech

On-Island Dates: September 2006 (1 week)

Number of Field Personnel Required: 2

After M. Wicklein finished the 2006 field work summary, Char Gisvold asked if there was going to be any UXO field work in the summer of 2006. Gary Simmons responded that there would be a sweep of the Andrew Lake seawall in September (as there has been annually for years). M. Wicklein commented that more UXO-related information will also be presented later in the meeting.

Five-Year Review Preliminary Results
M. Wicklein introduced the next speaker, Michael Meyer of URS. M. Meyer was the URS Project Manager for the recently completed Second Five-Year Review for Adak. M. Meyer presented a Power Point presentation with 21 slides, covering various aspects of the Five-Year review process and associated findings. M. Meyers stated that a review is performed every five years, to review information or technology that may have become available that would change a Record of Decision (ROD) and to ensure that the remedies selected remain protective of human health and the environment. In the Adak Five-Year Review, OU A, OU B-1 and petroleum sites were included.

M. Meyer presentation is available on the Adakupdate.com website at: http://www.adakupdate.com/pdfs/news/Final2nd5-YrReviewRABPresentation.pdf. (In addition, a Fact Sheet concerning the process was prepared in August 2005, http://www.adakupdate.com/pdfs/news/5-Year_Review77_fact_sheet.pdf). Once the Second Five-Year Review is approved by the regulatory agencies, it will be posted on the website. In addition, a Fact Sheet summarizing the process and relevant recommendations will be posted.

After M. Meyer's presentation, Jason Weigle mentioned that, as part of performing the second Five-Year Review, URS prepared a sites catalog that contains all the petroleum and CERCLA (chemically-impacted sites in OU A) sites on Adak. He praised the Navy and their contractor for their efforts in making information readily available for public review / use. Each site summary in the catalog contains a site figure, a description of the work that has been done to date, the location of any groundwater or product recovery wells, and a list of documents related to the site. The entire catalog is 500 pages long.
Petroleum Sites Update
Only three out of the 14 free-product sites with interim remedies remain without a final remedy memorialized in a decision document. These are South of Runway 18-36, SWMU 62 and SWMU 17.

The information below provides relevant information on the remaining petroleum sites that require further work:
- NMCB
  A Decision Document was executed on March 22, 2006, subsequently posted on Adakupate.com website at: http://www.adakupdate.com/docs.html#NMCBDD.
  
  The selected remedy includes:
  - Free-product recovery (monitoring and recovery wells)
  - Monitored natural attenuation (MNA)
  - Surface water protection / visual monitoring
  - Institutional controls
  Field work begins in summer 2006.
- South of Runway 18-36
  The Proposed Plan is complete. The draft Decision Document for this site has been submitted to ADEC for review and concurrence, and to The Aleut Corporation (TAC) and the Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT) for review.
  
  The final Decision Document is anticipated to be available May 2006.
  
  The selected remedy includes:
  - Free-product recovery
  - Trenches will be installed (to recover more product and to protect Sweeper Creek from possible contamination)
  - Monitored natural attenuation
  - Institutional controls
  Field work begins in summer 2006.
- SWMU 62
  The Proposed Plan is complete. The draft Decision Document for this site has been submitted to ADEC for review and concurrence, and to TAC for review.
  
  The final Decision Document is anticipated to be available May 2006.
  
  The selected remedy includes:
  - Free-product recovery
  - Trenches will be installed (to recover more product and to protect East Canal from possible contamination))
  - Monitored natural attenuation
  - Institutional controls
  Field work begins in 2006.
- SWMU 17
  The site characterization report is complete (sampling in summer 2005, revision to earlier report made in winter 2005). The draft Feasibility Study was recently approved by ADEC. The Proposed Plan is anticipated to be available for public review and comment in May / June 2006. A Decision Document is anticipated in Fall / Winter 2006.
  
  The proposed remedy includes:
  - Monitored natural attenuation
  - Institutional controls
  Field work begins in 2007.
- New Area 303
  This site, as mentioned previously, is located between GCI and SWMU 62. The site will be investigated in summer 2006. Included in that work may be an investigation of pipelines along the Main Road (these pipelines had been decommissioned previously. They carried AVGAS to the flightline area in the past, as well as JP-5 to the housing areas).
  
  A Feasibility Study will be completed after that. Subsequently, a Proposed Plan and Decision Document will be drafted for the site. These three steps will likely occur in 2007.
Before the presentation on OU B, Violet Pearl asked where the decommissioned pipelines were located. M. Wicklein responded that the abandoned pipelines were along Main Road. He speculated that the pipelines would need leak testing to be performed, to determine the integrity of the lines. He also thought that, if the leak tests indicate that sections of pipelines are not sound, some further investigations may be required.
OU-B Discussion
Gary Simmons then presented a brief description of the work related to OU B, as follows:
- OU B-1
  The expected future land use for Parcel 4, including the OU B-1 sites where cleanup has not yet been completed, has been changed from unrestricted land use to long term use as an Access-Restricted Military Reservation. Due to this change, the Navy has submitted an Explanation of Significant Differences (ESD) to identify this land use change and address exposure assumptions and the potential explosive safety hazard with respect to surface and subsurface ordnance items. The project team is currently reviewing this document.
- OU B-2
  The Navy has agreed to provide a revised Draft Remedial Investigation / Feasibility Study (RI/FS) in an accelerated time frame. Project team managers will be meeting in May to discuss the implications of the proposed Access-Restricted Military Reservation proposal and to reach consensus on the array of remedial alternatives. Once selected, these alternatives will be fully developed for comparison using the nine evaluation criteria specified in EPA's Guidance for Conducting Remedial Investigations and Feasibility Studies Under CERCLA (http://www.epa.gov/superfund/resources/remedy/pdf/540g-89004-s.pdf).
  
  The current proposed approach is to use Technology Aided Visual Surface Clearance (TAVSC) in OU B-2 target areas only. G. Simmons stated that conversations had taken place, and will continue, between the 3 parties that had signed the Federal Facilities Agreement (FFA) - ADEC, EPA and Navy.
Other Issues / Questions
Char Gisvold asked if there was UXO-related field work planned for summer 2006. G. Simmons responded that the Rifle Grenade area (RG-01) will be cleared, for the first time, this summer. RG-01 will be considered a removal action, for once targets are identified they will be excavated and removed from the area. The Lake Jean (LJ-01) site cleanup is associated with OU B-1, and still under discussion with ADEC and EPA.

Mark Murphy added that the Navy EOD team will also perform the annual Lake Andrew Seawall sweep during late summer/autumn 2006. This is essentially a visual inspection of the seawall area, followed by surface clearance and destruction of any items found.

C. Gisvold stated that her concern is not that what actually washes up on the seawall itself is dangerous. Rather, that the casing has a "life span," and it may deteriorate over time, exposing whatever is inside to leaching by sea water. M. Murphy said that items that have been found on the seawall in the past have had a very battered appearance, indicating that they have been tossed around the sea a lot. C. Grisvold then asked if the sea life could be threatened by the contents of such items leaking out. M. Murphy thought that there were not enough items, located at a density with sufficient concentration to cause harm to sea life. He mentioned that, at the most, 10-15 items are found per year. Jason Weigle commented that the number of items found, relative to the massive amount of sea water, would pose no impact to the undersea environment.

C. Gisvold stated that no one really knows how much ordnance-related items remain off the shelf (associated with the interface between Andrew Bay and the Bering Sea). M. Murphy said that, if water samples were collected in that area, ordnance-related compounds would likely not be detected, due to the high dilution rate.

Violet Pearl then asked if the seawall sweep was completed in 2005. M. Murphy stated it was not completed, due to a lack of appropriate functioning equipment on-site at the time.

At this time, Charles Lyon offered a correction to the October 19, 2005 minutes. In those minutes, as C. Lyon pointed out, on page 3, first paragraph under the section entitled "MEC Investigation and Cleanup," the area where the cartridges were found is listed as RG-01. The area was, in fact, located near SWMU 21A, White Alice Upper Quarry. M. Murphy confirmed the correction, saying that the items mentioned in the previous set of minutes were found on a steep hillside adjacent to the former White Alice site. (Note - correction to the Oct. 19, 2005 minutes will be made and revised minutes posted on adakupdate.com). M. Murphy stated that RG-01 is within the Access Restricted Area (Parcel 4).

C. Gisvold then asked about UXO cleanup at the Mount Moffett area. G. Simmons replied that the Mt. Moffett sites are within OU B-1 and OU B-2, and are the subject of on-going discussions between the Navy, ADEC and EPA. Until issues related to cleanup goals and clearance levels are ironed out between the regulatory agencies and the Navy, no work will take place on Mt. Moffett sites.

C. Lyon then asked about who will be taking over UXO Awareness training material distribution in the future. M. Murphy stated that Chuck Lyons will still be distributing UXO Awareness training material. M. Murphy stated that he will clarify that this duty is still covered under the existing ECC contract.
Review Action Items
URS will correct the Oct. 19, 2005 RAB meeting minutes to reflect the fact that cartridges were found near SWMU 21A, not RG-01.

M. Murphy will clarify that C. Lyons is still contractually covered for his UXO Awareness material distribution activities.
Preliminary Agenda for Next Meeting
M. Wicklein proposed a draft agenda for the fall 2006 RAB meeting, including:
- 2006 summer field season update
- Progress report on OU B issues
- Update on SWMU 17
Set Date for Next RAB
The proposed date for the next formal RAB meeting is Wednesday, October 11, 2006. Once again, the meeting would commence at 6:00 PM, Adak time. The preliminary agenda would be sent out via e-mail, as that method seemed to work well for the current RAB meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 7:20 PM, Adak time.