Notices - EPA OSC Response

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Mackinaw Bay Petroleum Sheens

Notices

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Notices	Posted	Category
Project Update: Removal Successfully Completed in Mackinaw Bay	6/29/2012	Site Update
EPA and BNSF Railway complete 6 week cleanup in Whitefish Lake Project removes 450 cubic yards of contaminated sediments from 1989 train wreck in time for summer recreation season Contacts: Steve Merritt (US EPA), 303-312-6146; Jennifer Chergo (US EPA), 303-312-6601 Gus Melonas (BNSF Railway), 206-625-6220 The dredging project in Mackinaw Bay on Whitefish Lake was completed on Monday, June 25, 2012, when the final two lined dumpsters of contaminated sediments were lifted onto a waiting truck and sent to the sediment dewatering facility in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway rail yard in Whitefish. These two dumpsters represent the last of approximately 450 cubic yards of dredged sediments with residual concentrations of diesel fuel from the 1989 train derailment and tank car rupture. The project, conducted at the direction and oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after requests from the City of Whitefish and the Whitefish Lake Institute, was completed in just over six weeks and before the peak summer recreational season. "The project team accomplished the objective and did so before the 4th of July, as promised,” said EPA On-Scene Coordinator Steven Merritt. “The dredging removed more than 97% of the petroleum contamination from Mackinaw Bay, eliminating the potential for sheen during summer recreational activity, and restored aquatic habitat for an important part of the Whitefish Lake ecosystem." Confirmation samples collected following the dredging throughout Mackinaw Bay indicate that the dredging reduced the petroleum concentrations in the sediments of Mackinaw Bay by 97.3%, from an average initial concentration of 4191 mg/kg of extractable petroleum hydrocarbons (EPH) to a post-removal average concentration of 113 mg/kg EPH. These concentrations are only slightly higher than background concentrations found elsewhere in the sediments of Whitefish Lake. The trace concentrations of diesel that remain are also well below the stringent screening levels of 200 mg/kg EPH established by the EPA and the MT Department of Environmental Quality for the project, making them unlikely to generate any visible sheen or inhibit aquatic life. They will also readily breakdown over time as they are consumed by naturally occurring bacteria and degraded by oxidation and sunlight. Merritt said of the results, "All the heavy equipment and expensive GPS-guided dredging technology in the world cannot remove every last molecule of any spilled material without doing excessive damage to the environment. Every removal, including this one in Mackinaw Bay, must take into account the net environmental benefit. Invariably, in clean-ups involving petroleum hydrocarbons, the natural processes are the final step necessary to reduce these concentrations to zero." The last of the equipment necessary to support the removal, including the crane and the dredge, were removed from Whitefish Lake at City Beach late this week. All that remains from the project is the washed river rock that served as the platform for the crane, which has been donated to the City of Whitefish by BNSF Railway and will be converted into a launch ramp for the rescue hovercraft by BNSF Railway contractors once the water levels recede. The project team, which included representatives from EPA, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, BNSF Railway, KennedyJenks, and Envirocon, has appreciated the cooperation and support of the entire Whitefish community, especially the neighborhoods around City Beach and those who recreate in Whitefish Lake. Without the patience and understanding of the general public and the assistance provided by the City of Whitefish during this project, this removal may not have been possible. Merritt said, "I'm grateful to the people of Whitefish and to the rest of the stakeholders involved in this project for their patience and assistance. I'm also thankful that BNSF Railway fully cooperated with EPA to comprehensively address this issue with a team of skilled technical experts and the right equipment to get the job done." For more information on the project, please go to: www.epaosc.org/mackinawbaypetroleumsheens. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact: Jennifer Chergo, Community Involvement Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (800)227-8917 / (303)312-6601 chergo.jennifer@epa.gov Steven Merritt, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6146 merritt.steven@epa.gov Gus Melonas Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (206)625-6220 gus.melonas@bnsf.com
Project Update: Dredging Complete; Preliminary Sample Results Received and Demobilization Beginning	6/25/2012	Site Update
Public Notice - June 25, 2012 Dredging was completed within Mackinaw Bay on Monday, June 25, 2012. A total of 45 barge loads of roll-off container sets were filled and moved across Whitefish Lake over the duration of the project, representing between 405 and 450 cubic yards of contaminated sediments removed. The initial confirmatory sampling results indicate that the dredging reduced the petroleum concentrations in the sediments of Mackinaw Bay by 97.3%, from an average concentration of 4191 mg/kg of extractable petroleum hydrocarbons (EPH) to a post-removal average concentration of 113 mg/kg EPH. These concentrations are only slightly higher than the background concentrations found elsewhere in the sediments of Whitefish Lake and are unlikely to generate sheen or inhibit aquatic life or benthic organisms. The contractors are working to recover all equipment that was used in Mackinaw Bay, including containment booms, sorbents, barges, and the excavator this week. Equipment will be pushed by tug boat to City Beach to be offloaded by the crane onto waiting transport trucks. This equipment will then be taken to the BNSF railyard for cleaning and demobilization. Once all vessels are removed from Whitefish Lake, the crane, which is now sitting in about 18" of water will be moved off the platform and driven back on shore to demobilize from the site. The crane mats and super sacks of rock used to establish the docking bay near the crane will then be removed from Whitefish Lake and the remaining rock configured to establish a gentle slope for the Whitefish Fire Department's rescue hovercraft to use for deployments. It is expected that this work will be completed by the end of the week, ensuring that City Beach and the boat ramp will be available for full use by the public in time for the Wood Boat Rendezvous and the 4th of July Holiday. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact: Jennifer Chergo, Community Involvement Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (800)227-8917 / (303)312-6601 chergo.jennifer@epa.gov Steven Merritt, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6146 merritt.steven@epa.gov
Project Update: Dredging Over 50% Complete; Anticipated Demobilization June 30, 2012	6/18/2012	Site Update
Public Notice - June 18, 2012 Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and its contractors, KennedyJenks, Envirocon, and NSR, are more than halfway through the dredging operation planned for Mackinaw Bay on Whitefish Lake. As of Saturday, June 16, 2012, the project team had removed roughly 250 cubic yards of contaminated sediments from Whitefish Lake and transported them to the BNSF railyard for treatment and proper disposal. The dredging operation has achieved the excavation limits on the north side of Mackinaw Bay and confirmation sampling has been conducted to confirm the achievement of clean-up goals. Results from these sampling events are expected as early as Wednesday. On the south side of Mackinaw Bay, dredging will continue as the team works to safely reach sediments in deeper water as the lake levels recede. Shallower sediments have already been dredged on the south side and confirmatory sampling has been conducted here as well. The project is slightly ahead of schedule for completing the dredging of up to 450 cubic yards of material from Mackinaw Bay and demobilizing equipment before June 30, 2012. The project team has been adjusting the schedule of operations at City Beach or suspending removal activities altogether when recreational traffic and beach activity increase in the afternoons. BNSF and its contractors have been stockpiling dredged materials in containers on barges in Mackinaw Bay during these periods to allow offload when City Beach is less active in the mornings. Provided recreational activity patterns remain roughly the same in the coming weeks, it is anticipated that the project will sustain current production rates without difficulty. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact: Jennifer Chergo, Community Involvement Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (800)227-8917 / (303)312-6601 chergo.jennifer@epa.gov Steven Merritt, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6146 merritt.steven@epa.gov
Project Update: Dredging Underway in Mackinaw Bay	6/11/2012	Site Update
Public Notice - June 11, 2012 Dredging began last Thursday afternoon in Mackinaw Bay and the first of several areas containing diesel-contaminated sediments have already been removed, decanted, and placed into lined roll-off boxes for transport across Whitefish Lake. As of this morning, a total of 10 roll-off boxes and approximately 50 cubic yards of material have been removed from Mackinaw Bay and transported to City Beach on barges. At City Beach they were offloaded by crane and taken by truck to the treatment facility in the BNSF railyard for dewatering and subsequent shipment by rail to an approved disposal facility in North Dakota. Work is expected to continue daily from approximately 7:00AM to 5:00PM, Monday through Saturday, through the end of June. The project is on schedule for completion and demobilization prior to Independence Day, barring significant weather delays. Just prior to the start of dredging, EPA along with representatives from the Whitefish Lake Institute, the City of Whitefish, the Whitefish City Council, Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad toured the site on the WLI research vessel. Mike Koopal (WLI), Lori Curtis (WLI), Karin Hilding (CoW Engineer), Richard Hildner (WCC), Jessica Gutting (MTDEQ) and David Smith (BNSF) were given a briefing on site by Steven Merritt (EPA) about the dredging operation and the best management practices to prevent turbidity and contamination migration. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact: Jennifer Chergo, Community Involvement Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (800)227-8917 / (303)312-6601 chergo.jennifer@epa.gov Steven Merritt, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6146 merritt.steven@epa.gov
Project Update: Accidental Discharge of Water from Clarification Pond back into Whitefish River	6/6/2012	Site Update
Public Notice - June 6, 2012 The Whitefish River and Mackinaw Bay removal actions are both utilizing a three-stage water treatment and sediment dewatering facility that has been constructed in the BNSF railyard to support these activities. The system is designed to receive dredge spoils from the Whitefish River project via a pipeline pumping them from the hydraulic dredge in the river and from the Mackinaw Bay project via roll-off boxes being emptied into the same sedimentation pond where the pipeline enters the treatment system. The system is designed to separate the contaminated sediments from the water in the first stage, which is a series of baffled sedimentation ponds that also collect any generated petroleum sheen. The contaminated sediments can then be removed from these ponds, dried, and placed into rail cars for shipment to an approved disposal facility in North Dakota. The water from these sedimentation ponds, which are located on the north side of the tracks and visible from the viaduct, then flows to a large settling and clarification pond in the southwest corner of the BNSF railyard. This settling and clarification pond is designed to remove suspended solids using flocculants, similar to the process used in drinking water treatment, which is the second stage. The third and final stage in the process before the permitted discharge back into the Whitefish River is filtration using granular activated carbon (GAC) which preferentially binds any organic chemicals in the water and micro-filtration which helps remove any residual suspended solids larger than 5 microns in diameter. At around 9:50AM on Tuesday, June 5, 2012, the final settling and clarification pond in the second stage of the water treatment system was being filled for the first time to capacity as contractors awaited sampling results from the discharge point collected during a trial run to confirm that all required water quality parameters had been met. Dredging in the river continued and the treatment system was approaching full storage capacity, as planned. Unfortunately, the berm on the south side of the pond had settled since installation and there was less free-board available than anticipated. As a result, water momentarily overflowed the containment at this point, washing a portion of the berm on the south side of the pond away and undermining the stability of the rest of the slope. Immediate actions were taken to stabilize and reinforce the slope, capture and pump materials collected at the base of the slope back into the treatment system, and to reduce the level of water in the pond by reversing the flow back into the sedimentation ponds in the first stage of treatment. Visual inspections of the lined pond were conducted and the system was monitored for any other signs of subsidence or breach as the water level was being brought down. At approximately 7:30PM that evening after some extensive rainfall and as the contractors were making their final inspections of the berm with increased freeboard from lower water levels, the same berm surrounding the final settling and clarification pond adjacent to the original overflow area became saturated and failed. This failure resulted in a discharge of approximately 300,000 gallons of partially-treated water into the Whitefish River. The discharge, which lasted approximately 15 minutes, traveled down the slope from the settling and clarification pond in the southwest corner of the BNSF railyard, across the recreational bike path, and down a lower slope before entering the river. Both slopes were heavily eroded and material from the slopes was deposited along the bike path. The bike path foundation was undercut in two locations and the vegetation on the slopes was impacted. Given the fact that this pond is located toward the latter end of the treatment chain just prior to carbon filtration and permitted discharge into the Whitefish River, no public health or environmental threats are anticipated from this discharge. No petroleum sheen was observed on this pond at any time during active dredging and filling. EPA anticipates that analytical samples collected from this pond earlier on June 5, 2012, prior to the discharge, will confirm the assumptions that there are no measurable pollutants or contaminants in this water when they are received on June 7, 2012. These results will be made available as soon as they are received. Following the discharge, contractors notified the EPA OSCs and were given an NPDES permit exemption under the provisions of 40 CFR 122.3(d) to begin rapidly draining the entire pond through the carbon filtration treatment system into the discharge pipe in the Whitefish River to prevent any other breach of containment within the pond. The pond was drained via the filtration system through the night and into the morning on June 6, 2012. A structural engineer was called to the site to evaluate the integrity of the pond and make recommendations about whether there is a safe water elevation within the remaining excavated pond area to operate the second stage of water treatment or if the pond will need be repairable to allow continued dredging operations. This evaluation is expected to take most of the day on June 6, 2012 and his findings will be evaluated by the project team before any action is taken to continue dredging operations. Alternative technologies, including containerized electro-flocculation apparatus that might augment or reduce the retention times required to remove colloidal clays from the effluent, are being evaluated to supplement the clarification pond. Contractors have already begun cleaning up from the discharge, placing silt curtain and other erosion controls, and repairing the berms. The Mayor and the City Engineer from Whitefish have toured the impacted areas with BNSF, EPA, and the contractors. BNSF and its contractors have pledged to repair the damaged areas of the bike path, stabilize eroded slopes, and restored and revegetate riparian areas along the shoreline with appropriate native plants. Notifications about the discharge were made promptly to the City of Whitefish, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the EPA's National Response Center, and the U.S. Department of Interior. The NRC report number for this incident is 1003663. Images of the aftermath of the event are available at the following links: http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7813/files/Whitefish-20120606-00284.jpg http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7813/files/Whitefish-20120606-00282.jpg http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7813/files/Whitefish-20120605-00269.jpg http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7813/files/Whitefish-20120605-00270.jpg http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7813/files/Whitefish-20120605-00267.jpg http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7813/files/Whitefish-20120606-00277.jpg http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7813/files/Whitefish-20120606-00276.jpg UPDATE on 6/8/2012: Analytical results received for the sample collected from the clarification pond prior to the discharge on June 5, 2012, indicate that there were no detectible levels of petroleum hydrocarbons and that the total suspended solids were 66 mg/L. The document from the laboratory is posted in the document section. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact: Jennifer Chergo, Community Involvement Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (800)227-8917 / (303)312-6601 chergo.jennifer@epa.gov Steven Merritt, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6146 merritt.steven@epa.gov David Romero, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6572 romero.david@epa.gov
Project Update: Dredging to Commence on Tuesday, June 5, 2012	5/31/2012	Site Update
Public Notice - May 31, 2012 The project continues to progress. All the vessels associated with the dredging operations have been put into Whitefish Lake at City Beach on May 29, 2012 and May 30, 2012 using the 65-ton crane. All vessels were subject to and passed aquatic invasive species inspections by the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department, the Whitefish Lake Institute, and a consultant from the Flathead Basin Commission. Thus far there are two sectional barges, two tugboats, and a sectional work platform for the excavator that have been moved to and moored in Mackinaw Bay. The area to the west of the boat ramp at City Beach where the crane is setup has been reinforced with bags of washed rock that will serve as a barrier for the barges to park against during loading and unloading of the lined dumpsters once dredging commences. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and its contractors, KennedyJenks, Envirocon, and Dixon Marine, are establishing sediment curtains and containment booms within Mackinaw Bay today and are going to load the dumpsters onto the transport barges and the excavator/dredge onto the work platform tomorrow. They will then calibrate the DredgePack guidance system to the survey control points in Mackinaw Bay to ensure that dredging is properly conducted to remove all contaminated sediments. Following setup, logistical coordination, and equipment calibration, the contractors are planning to begin dredging and hauling operations of contaminated sediments in earnest beginning on Tuesday, June 5, 2012, and continuing during the weekdays and Saturdays through the end of June. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact: Jennifer Chergo, Community Involvement Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (800)227-8917 / (303)312-6601 chergo.jennifer@epa.gov Steven Merritt, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6146 merritt.steven@epa.gov
Vessels Scheduled to be put into Whitefish Lake on 5/29/2012	5/23/2012	Site Update
Public Notice - May 23, 2012 Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and its contractors, KennedyJenks, Envirocon, and Dixon Marine, are planning to launch vessels and equipment required to begin dredging Mackinaw Bay into Whitefish Lake on Tuesday, May 29, 2012. A 65-ton crane will first be installed to the west of the Boat Ramp on a temporary platform and then various barges, tugboats, and watercraft will be put into the lake using the crane. City Beach and the eastern lane of the boat ramp and dock will remain open to the public throughout this project. The 65-ton crane and its temporary rock and steel platform in front of the Rescue Hovercraft garage will be removed at the end of the project. This operation is expected to take approximately four hours and will be followed by two tugboats pushing the equipment across the lake to Mackinaw Bay, which will facilitate initial setup of the site containment and dredging operations, which are expected to begin on Wednesday, May 30, 2012. All vessels and watercraft have been inspected and certified by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks to be free of aquatic invasive species. The inspections were verified by EPA, the Whitefish Lake Institute, and a consultant to the Flathead Basin Commission on May 23, 2012. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact: Jennifer Chergo, Community Involvement Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (800)227-8917 / (303)312-6601 chergo.jennifer@epa.gov Steven Merritt, Federal On-Scene Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (303)312-6146 merritt.steven@epa.gov