1. The meeting was held at the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) offices in Anchorage, Alaska, with telephone connections to Adak and Poulsbo, Washington. The following were in attendance:

Name	Affiliation	Location
Cathy Villa	Community Co-Chair	Anchorage, AK
Violet Pearl	Community Co-Chair	Adak, AK
Mark Murphy	Navy Co-Chair	Anchorage, AK
Mike Mitchell	RAB Community Member	Anchorage, AK
Will Tillion	RAB Community Member	Adak, AK
Chuck Mohn	RAB Community Member	Adak, AK
Tara Bourdukofsky	The Aleut Corporation	Anchorage, AK
Dave Jensen	The Aleut Corporation	Anchorage, AK
Mike Durfee	New RAB Community Member	Adak, AK
Carrie Long	New RAB Community Member	Adak, AK
Agafon Krufoff	RAB Community Member	Adak, AK
Jack Stewart	RAB Community Member	Adak, AK
Jim Brown	Navy	Poulsbo, WA
Teresa Thomas	Navy	Adak, AK
Mark Wicklein	Navy	Poulsbo, WA
Hope Lewis	Navy	Anchorage, AK
Sami Goldman	ADEC	Anchorage, AK
Kevin Oates	EPA	Montgomery, AL
JoAnn Grady	Grady & Associates	Anchorage, AK
Mary Lou Sullivan	URS	Poulsbo, WA
Bill Rohrer	URS	Anchorage, AK
Wendy Oresik	URS	Anchorage, AK



2. Welcome and Opening Remarks:

Cathy Villa called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M. (Anchorage Time). The agenda was approved as presented. The May 28, 2003 meeting minutes were approved. It was noted that Steve Hines was not available, and no other City of Adak representatives were present.

3. Transfer Status

Hope Lewis stated that the Navy has completed the environmental work required to support transfer. The Navy will be meeting with Alaska Department of Transportation to resolve issues regarding the airport. The Navy is ready to sign the Finding of Suitability to Transfer (FOST) once the airport issues are resolved. Kevin Oates indicated that EPA has no problem with the FOST. Sami Goldman indicated that ADEC supports the FOST, also. Dave Jensen expressed TAC's commitment to move ahead with the transfer. He indicated that it would be unlikely that TAC would wait the entire 90 days allotted before signing the FOST. He believes that transfer is imminent, and that TAC will respond very quickly. Chris Kennedy of the Alaska Department of Law will draft the final land transfer agreement, the draft of which had been sent to Adak for comment. The land transfer agreement will then be sent to the TAC Board for their approval, which may come as early as Christmas 2003.

Cathy indicated that there is a meeting tomorrow (Nov. 6) to resolve the airport issues with the Alaska Department of Transportation.

Hope said that quite a few repairs are expected to be required at the airport. There are concerns over where groundwater-monitoring wells are located. The Navy has been working all summer to try to resolve these issues. She indicated that she, Mark Murphy, and Jennifer Roberts of ADEC would be meeting tomorrow to discuss the monitoring wells again in an attempt to reach resolution on this issue.

4. 2003 Field Season Update


1. Marine Monitoring

   Jim Brown, who is managing the marine and long-term monitoring program, presented a summary of the activities conducted during the last field season. Five years of marine sampling (1999 through 2003) have now been completed. For the field effort this summer, marine tissue samples were collected from Kuluk Bay, Sweeper Cove, and the Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands is a reference area, a comparison site for the other two data sets. Rock sole and blue mussel were sampled. The complete data set from the Biological Research Division (BRD) of the USGS for the years 2001 and 2002 are not yet available. A summary of the data received from summer 2003 sampling was provided in the material sent out prior to the meeting. Table 1 of this summary shows a comparison of the 2003 data with the 2000 data. For Sweeper Cove, PCB concentrations in rock sole and blue mussel were slightly elevated from what they were in 2000. For Kuluk Bay, only the rock sole samples were elevated above 2000 levels.

   A technical memorandum will be drafted by February 2004 to summarize all 5 years of data and determine whether there are any temporal changes or trends in the data. This data will be used to determine whether a fish advisory for subsistence harvesters will need to be maintained.

   Cathy asked why, if the concentrations were elevated from the year 2000, there would be a thought of removing the fish advisory. Jim responded that the concentrations in rock sole and blue mussel in Sweeper Cove and rock sole in Kuluk Bay are still above risk-based levels and clarified that the fish advisories need to be maintained for the time being. If concentration trends over the past 5 years indicate that the concentrations are decreasing, it may be an indication that the fish advisories could be removed sooner rather than later. Until there has been a trend analysis of the data over the past 5 years, it's hard to say whether that would be the case.

   Cathy asked when the analysis would be done. Jim indicated that the analysis could not be done until the last of the data from BRD is received. Jim Estes of BRD had indicated to Jim that these data would be in by the end of next week. Then it will take the Navy a couple of weeks to compile the data, and the evaluation cannot be conducted until the compilation is completed. The report should be in final draft by May 2004.

   Kevin Oates provided some input regarding this discussion. The first point he made concerned the fish advisory itself. The importance to the community and others of removing the fish advisory signs was clear. In their place, the Navy is providing educational fact sheets that provide fish advisory information. Kevin did not expect to see this effort going away anytime in the near or in the distant future, because it's an important educational awareness tool and part of the CERCLA process to let residents know what is happening with PCB concentrations in blue mussels and rock sole.

   The second point Kevin made concerned the Navy's requirement and commitment in the OU A Record of Decision (ROD) to continue to monitor marine wildlife at Adak, specifically blue mussels and rock sole. The Navy is reaching the first milestone in this effort, which is collection of 5 years of monitoring data. EPA is going to take a hard look at the data and the trend analysis and report back to the Navy, the RAB, and others. At this point, the question of what the next step should be can be asked. Mark said that this topic could be discussed later on in the meeting. He announced that the first fact sheet developed for the existing fish consumption advisory for Adak has been mailed to the Adak distribution list and is also available on the www.adakupdate.com website. This fact sheet is the first step in moving away from the posted sign advisory.

   Kevin stated that he thought the Navy had gone above and beyond what is required of it by the CERCLA process by funding the surveys that Jim Estes and his group are conducting, not just at Adak, but throughout the Aleutian chain. This sampling effort will be the keystone for a lot of the information being generated regarding the presence of persistent organic pollutants up and down the Aleutian chain and is great work. The answers aren't going to come overnight, but the effort undertaken so far is laying a good foundation for getting to those answers.

   Cathy indicated that getting these answers is important. She stated that even though the potential health effects might take a long time to manifest themselves, their severity is not diminished. Kevin replied that we do not yet know the answers to these questions. Kevin reiterated that the Navy is to be commended for funding an effort that goes beyond answering the immediate questions of Adak, looking to what is happening in the Aleutian chain as a whole.

2. Long-Term Monitoring

   Jim continued with an update on annual groundwater and landfill monitoring, which was conducted in October. The field effort went well, with minimal problems. Samples have been sent out to the laboratory for analysis. The resulting analytical data will need to be validated before it can be evaluated. Early in spring 2004 (April or May), the Navy will publish a report of the results.

   At the same time the monitoring was taking place, the annual institutional control (IC) site inspections were conducted (October 6-10). The summary report of the IC inspections is due out 60 days from the end of the fieldwork, making it in the late December timeframe. The inspection team found that all the deficiencies noted in last year's inspection-downed signs, fences, a few other things-had been corrected, and minimal deficiencies were noted from this round. The fish advisory signs around Kuluk Bay and Sweeper Cove were also removed during this last field effort.

   Cathy asked whether educational posters had been sent to the island, and Mark replied that they had been sent.

   Jim continued with a discussion of UXO sign removal. All the signs at the trailheads were removed, as well as a couple of signs out by Palisades Point and SWMU 2, areas that have been cleared as free from UXO. The only signs that should be up now are around Parcel 4 and the Lake Andrew area. These signs were inspected as part of the IC inspection conducted in October.

3. Drinking Water System

   Mark stated that three inactive drinking water systems on the island (Nurse's Creek, North Lake, and Mitchell Creek) were shut down in field season 2003. The decision was made to abandon the systems because they were no longer providing any service. The shutdown took place only after ADEC review and approval of the construction permit.

   All the residential fixtures in the Sandy Cove housing units were also replaced this field season. Tap water in some Sandy Cove units was sampled, and the results are described in the field season report. All of the 11 samples collected had copper concentrations below regulatory limits (1,300 ppb). Seven of the 11 samples collected had lead concentrations below regulatory limits (15 ppb). These data represent a reduction of 74% for copper and 98% for lead.

   In summary, Mark stated that some of the units still exceed the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for lead in drinking water (15 ppb). He could not recall what housing units had those exceedances. Mary Lou Sullivan noted that it's still advisable for residents to flush the lines for 30 seconds prior to using water for domestic purposes. If the lines are flushed for 30 seconds in the housing units where the lead concentrations are above the MCL, the levels will drop below the MCL. Mark stated that the Navy has issued a couple of fact sheets on the lead and copper exceedances in drinking water systems on Adak. The fact sheets describe what the Navy has done to eliminate the potential for exceeding lead and copper levels for drinking water. He reiterated that the potential lead exceedance is eliminated by flushing the system before the water is used.

   Hope said she was under the impression that the lead in the water in the housing units comes from the pipes themselves, not from the drinking water source. Mark indicated that she was correct.

   A discussion ensued regarding whether the City of Adak and the residents of the housing units were aware of the sampling results. These housing units were occupied at the time the sampling took place. It was requested that the Navy identify the specific locations where the exceedances were found. The Navy agreed to provide all sampling results, both for units where there were exceedances and units where there were no exceedances, to the City of Adak. Mark indicated that he thought that the results had been provided to Steve Hines of the City of Adak, but wasn't certain. He also said the results had been provided to ADEC (Division of Environmental Health, Drinking Water section). He said that the Navy will make sure that the sampling results have been distributed by the time of the next RAB meeting.

   Cathy asked whether any further work was planned on the drinking water system. Mark replied that the Navy had no plans for further work on the system, but that monitoring of the system would continue to occur by the system operators (City of Adak).

4. Pipeline Cleaning Project

   Mark said that the pipeline-cleaning project is described in the field season report distributed to RAB members. Almost 14,000 feet of abandoned 10-inch line running parallel to and on the west side of the 18-36 runway was evacuated, cleaned, and closed. Much shorter lengths of 4- and 8-inch lines were removed from the area, where they had been abandoned. That work was done early in the field season. The report for that work should be in the information repository on Adak and in Anchorage, if someone wants to get more details as to what was actually done as part of that project.

5. UXO Access Restrictions and Ordnance Scrap Removal

   Mark indicated that at the last RAB meeting, there was a discussion regarding the incident where someone had brought ordnance-related scrap into town. Apparently, the signs restricting access and the gates across the access roads at Andrew Lake had been violated. Following this incident, the access roads on the east and west sides of the lake (providing access to the seawall) were blocked again. Approved signs, gates, locks, and boulders behind those gates have now been put in place to prevent any kind of vehicular access into these areas. These barriers were temporarily removed to get some work done in the area, but after the work was completed, the access restrictions were restored. Kevin asked Mark for a report on this work as a "for your information" courtesy, and Mark agreed to provide such a report to EPA and ADEC.

   Mark indicated that another activity conducted this past field season to remove the "attractive nuisance" in areas of the island where ordnance-related scrap had been generated during the past few field seasons of ordnance-related cleanup. This scrap material has been processed to make sure that it is free of explosives residue and not hazardous to recyclers who will recover the material for its metals content. In many cases, the material wasn't very valuable in the first place, but it is the Navy's preference to remove the material from the island, rather than dispose of it on the island. The Navy removed 31 drums of ordnance-related scrap and performed a visual inspection and thermal treatment of the material to meet DoD requirements for allowing a commercial recycler to accept that material. That work was completed in September. The material was delivered to a recycler in Tacoma just this past week; Mark expects by the time he gets back to Poulsbo from Anchorage that the material will have been recycled. There are still some ordnance-related scrap items in Parcel 4, but the large volume of scrap removed this summer will greatly reduce the possibility that someone will rummage through whatever ordnance-related scrap may still be on the island.

   Hope asked whether regular sweeps of the island were being conducted and if so, how frequently. Mark replied that the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) detachment from Whidbey Island was on island in September to perform a sweep, as part of the completion of removal of the ordnance-related scrap. EOD conducted an open detonation of some scrap items that could not be visually inspected to ensure that they didn't have any potential ordnance-related explosives. They also conducted a beach sweep of the Andrew Lake seawall and removed all the ordnance-related items that they encountered in that beach sweep. Mark would be happy to send along the report he received last week for that effort to the regulatory agencies.

   Hope asked whether anyone in the community was monitoring the restricted areas while the Navy is not present. Mark stated that while no one in the Navy was tasked with monitoring the exclusionary zone, the Navy would act on any report from island residents that the barricades or access restrictions had been breached. This is just what happened in the instance discussed at the last RAB meeting. Someone had violated the access restrictions, which prompted the Navy to improve the barriers and access restrictions on the Andrew Lake access roads. The Navy is relying on people's adherence to the posted advisory. Mark thinks that it would be very difficult for such an incident to happen again, given the measures that the Navy took this summer.

   Mark indicated that he expected to schedule the next season of ordnance work from June 2004 to the end of October2004. Carrie Long asked about the estimated size of the on-island teams. Mark responded that there would be somewhere between 40 and 60 people on the island when the 2004 field season is in full swing. It will be comparable to field seasons in the past as far as the volume of work that will be done.

6. Ordnance Education and Awareness Program

   Mark indicated that updated UXO educational materials had been sent to the island, and he hoped that residents had begun to see some of these materials. The materials include an updated DVD, which contains children- and adult-oriented videos on what to do if ordnance is discovered on Adak. These items were reviewed by various stakeholders and regulatory agencies before they were finalized and distributed to the community on Adak. The Navy has tried to get everyone a copy of the DVD. If someone hasn't received a copy, they need to let the Navy know, and more materials will be sent. The children's coloring books have been updated and made available to children on island. Updated safety information cards and hiking trail maps have also been provided to island residents. If residents don't have them, they are available through the Fish and Wildlife Service and from Steve Hines at the City of Adak office in the High School. The Navy has also updated posters and put them up at various locations on Adak. The Navy wants to get the word out regarding ordnance safety to as many people as it can in as many different ways as they can think of to provide that information. Additional items will be sent to the island in the upcoming months as part of the UXO educational awareness program.

7. OU B-2 RI/FS Status

   Mark said that the Navy plans to finish the draft final version of the OU B-2 RI/FS by the end of November. They are planning for a 30-day review period by ADEC and EPA and project team members, including Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association (A/PIA). The Navy therefore expects to receive comments on the document in the late December-early January timeframe. After the comments come in, a project team meeting will be scheduled to go over the comments received and hopefully finalize the document. This will allow the Navy to plan to remediate some of the OU B-2 sites in 2005 and subsequent field seasons.

   Kevin noted that for the ordnance sites in general, the Navy has taken a progressive approach, not relying on the sequential CERCLA process of conducting the investigation, preparing the decision document, then carrying out the cleanup. In the past, with ordnance and with chemical release sites, the process has been to take care of the problems as they come up. He asked if it seemed reasonable to conduct some OU B-2 work with the OU B-1 work next field season, in terms of the scope of the work for the cleanup. He acknowledged that there might be contractual issues associated with proceeding in this manner, but he wanted to toss out this approach as a way to speed up the cleanup.

   Mark indicated that this would be a good topic to discuss at the next project team meeting. Right now, though, because it's so late in the game in terms of scoping contractual mechanisms with the Navy's contractor, if changes like that are to be made, they need to be decided fairly soon. The assumption to operate on for today is that the remainder of OU B-1 sites, for which there is a ROD, will be the first ones to be addressed this upcoming field season. If there's a possibility to make some adjustments, this can be discussed.

   Kevin indicated that it was well understood that Parcel 4 boundaries have changed over time. Since Parcel 4 is the area that the Navy is retaining, and includes sites from both OU B-1 and OU B-2, it may just be a matter of saying that if there's a site that's 15 feet from another one, if there is a contract mechanism, it might make sense to address them both at the same time. From EPA's perspective, there's interest in exploring this as a possible approach. Mark indicated that there was interest on the Navy's part, but they didn't want to be operating at risk from a contract standpoint. Kevin indicated that the Navy was going above and beyond what was required, in this respect.

   Mark indicated that the project team would be meeting sometime in January to discuss some of the ideas that Kevin has brought up, as well as to discuss comments on the draft OU B-2 RI/FS and get it finalized so that planning can occur for how to remediate the remaining ordnance sites.

8. Petroleum Focused Feasibility Study (FFS) Evaluation Status

   Mark stated that 14 free-product sites in the OU A ROD have reached or will soon reach their endpoints for free-product recovery. The interim remedy for those sites was to recover free product (to the extent practicable), and the Navy is obliged to do this under the terms of the OU A ROD. There is more detail on this subject in the field summary. Basically, the Navy has agreed to group the sites into two categories: one group includes 10 sites that are likely to pose no unacceptable risk, based on the risk assessments that are going to be done as part of the free product site evaluations.

   The other four sites probably will have some level of unacceptable risk, either to ecological receptors or to human health exposure scenarios, to use a risk assessment term. The Navy and ADEC are on board with this approach. The evaluation of those sites has begun. The Navy expects to have a proposed plan and the initial group of site assessments done and through the regulatory review process sometime in early calendar year 2004. After that happens, and there is agreement from ADEC on remedy selection, the Navy will submit a proposed plan for public review and comment about the remedy selection for those sites, covering what the Navy intends to do as far as cleanup. The results of this review would be incorporated into a final decision document for the first group of sites. If the schedule is maintained, the next RAB meeting would occur within the public comment period on the proposed plan, mid-to late spring of 2004.

   The other four sites are not quite as far along in the assessment process. The objective is to complete the assessment on these sites and ideally include them along the same kind of schedule for public review and comment for remedy selection by ADEC. It is possible that separate proposed plans would need to be developed for the two groups of sites. There's a possibility that the four risk sites could be delayed a few months before the assessments are completed. It is the Navy's objective to begin some of the remediation work on the risk petroleum sites this coming field season, in particular the NMCB site, one of the sites adjacent to Sweeper Cove. The Navy expects that it should be able to begin planning for remediation sometime this upcoming field season.

   An Adak RAB member (?) asked whether ADEC was okay with the Navy's schedule with respect to these sites. Sami indicated that things were moving along as they should be. Mark stated that developing these reports has taken longer than might have been expected. A lot of administrative details had to be taken care of, in particular the ROD amendment and the amendment to the State-Adak Environmental Restoration Agreement (SAERA), which makes the whole approach possible. It was something that needed to be done to make sure that the Navy has met its regulatory obligations and its obligations under the OU A ROD. Sami indicated that the one-hour meeting before the last RAB meeting was about the Proposed Plan on the OU A ROD amendment. It took awhile to get through that administrative process, and ADEC, EPA, and the Navy just signed off on it about a month ago. Now that it's out of the way, the last phase of the project can be completed.

5. RAB Q/A on Responses TO ACAT ADAK "Fact Sheet"

   Cathy indicated that this agenda item would be postponed until the next RAB meeting. Cathy stated that she had sent a letter to the Alaska Communities Action on Toxics (ACAT) organization. Pam Miller, who prepared the fact sheet, was not available for this RAB meeting. She had handed out the ACAT fact sheet at a meeting with A/PIA in March. The group had A/PIA's response to the fact sheet. Cathy thought that the RAB might also have a response to it, as far as the facts about Adak are concerned. Cathy was not sure how widely distributed the fact sheet was. Pam had written before the last RAB meeting and asked to be on the agenda to discuss her fact sheet on Adak. In the meantime, a lot of people had questioned what was written in the fact sheet. The fact sheet was put on the agenda for this RAB meeting, but Pam wrote to Cathy late this afternoon that she would not be able to attend. Cathy was unaware that some did not have a copy of the subject fact sheet.

   Mark asked Mary Lou whether the ACAT fact sheet had been posted to the website, and whether the Navy's response to the fact sheet was also on the website. She indicated that the Navy's response had not been posted on www.adakupdate.com, and that ACAT's link on their website had not yet been activated. Cathy said that she would send out a copy of the ACAT fact sheet, and A/PIA's response and the Navy's response.

6. Next RAB Meeting

   Dave Jensen wanted to applaud getting the fish advisory signs down and was glad that the issue was behind the RAB now. Jim had been on island to make sure that these signs were removed.

   The subject of agenda items for the next RAB meeting was raised. Cathy indicated that the RAB needed to discuss what happened regarding transfer status of the runway at the next meeting. Mark stated that a project team report would be included on the agenda as well. Cathy said that a report from the island regarding how the ordnance awareness education materials had been received should be on the agenda, and Violet agreed to provide this report. Cathy also thought that an update on the status of petroleum issues should be on the agenda. The ordnance removal update will also be discussed next time.

   Violet nominated a couple of new community members to the RAB: Carrie Long and Mike Durfee. Agafon moved to vote these two members in, and Mike Mitchell seconded the motion. The new members were approved by the RAB.

   The date for the next RAB meeting was discussed, and March 11 (Thursday) was selected as a pre-RAB planning telecon. At that time, the date of the formal RAB meeting and agenda would be discussed.

   The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m. (Anchorage time).

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