The meeting began at 7:30 AM.

Transcription

1 The meeting began at 7:30 AM. Bob Haag: This month we will be discussing Barry Riddle s suggestion that the committee should think about performing in situ remediation at the Cabinets site, and we want to talk about the next round of USEPA grant prospects. 1

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3 NOTES FROM LAST MONTH S MEETING (14 Sep 11) Bob Haag: To remediate the site to commercial direct contact levels, the black areas on this figure should be excavated. The dark grey area would also have to be excavated to comply with residential direct contact levels. The lighter gray areas would need to be excavated because of the potential of the wastes in that area to leach into the groundwater. All areas would be excavated to bedrock, at about 5 feet. Wes Poole: What would the cost be? Bob Haag: Petroleum contaminated soil disposal is typically about $50/ton. Assuming 1.5 tons/cubic yard (CY), this would be about $75/CY for soil disposal I estimated 2,000 tons at this site [which would be 1,333 CY.] For the Cabinets factory site, asbestos removal was estimated at $39,000. Scott Schell got in a demolition estimate of $330,000 for the factory building. When all of the parts are taken together, the total project estimate would be just shy of a million dollars. 3

4 NOTES FROM LAST MONTH S MEETING (14 Sep 11) Petroleum contaminated soil disposal is typically about $50/ton. Assuming 1.5 tons/cubic yard (CY), this would be about $75/CY for soil disposal Estimated 2,000 tons at this site [which would be 1,333 CY]. Budget for excavation and disposal = $100,000. Budget for oversight, arrange disposal = $100,000. NOTES FROM THIS MONTH S MEETING (12 OCT 11) Lance Warner: What additional utility would be accomplished by excavating to leaching standards? Bob Haag: The Apex site will be cleaned up to commercial/industrial standards, however some people say that it might become residential in the future. Cleaning to leaching standards would mean removing the chemicals that might leach to shallow water, which would be a concern if the water were to be used for drinking in the future. Lance Warner: It looks as if the area to be excavated for leaching would be 50% of the total area. 4

5 Ruth Haag: The reason to clean up to leaching standards is because you cannot guarantee how someone will use the property in the future. For example, I am very concerned about the urban gardens that are being put in in large cities. There is a danger that the garden plants are performing phytoremediation on the sites. So, if you can have 100% certainty that no one will put a shallow well in to water their plants, in the future, then you would not need to clean it up to leaching standards. I use a principal where I ask myself, Will my decision today kill someone in the future? Wes Poole: How much more will it cost: Bob Haag: $50,000. Wes Poole: $50,000 will make it residential? Bob: More than that. Wes: Cool. On the marker board, Bob Haag drew a picture showing a rough cross section of the Cabinets site, with topsoil 2 5 down, followed by fractured rock, then dense rock, and finally permeable rock. In Ohio, the upper fractured rock zone is typically 30 deep. Around downtown Sandusky, there is a dense rock that is not permeable. The coal tar plume was found to be under this impermeable zone in another permeable zone. Malcolm Pirnie (M P) found that same zone here at Sandusky Cabinets. Bob Haag: When the area is being drilled, first the hole has some water, then no water, and then at around 18 water rises in the hole. This is called an artesian aquifer. Artesian means that the water is trapped below a dense layer, in this case the deeper water bearing zone is not the groundwater table. The groundwater table is in the upper zone. As long as no one puts a bunch of holes through the dense rock, the contamination will not reach the artesian water. Lance Warner: You would have to grout to protect from cross contamination. Sharon Johnson: How do you guarantee that water won t go higher than it did in the test well? Bob Haag: There is no guarantee. Ruth Haag: This is why an environmental scientist does not want to drill too many holes. Bob Haag: To clean up the site, we would want to take contamination from the top 2 5 so that it won t go down and contaminate the shallow fractured zone. 4

6 Bob Haag: After the soil is dug up and removed, there would be confirmation sampling that would be done on a grid pattern. 5

7 Bob Haag: Now let s consider not digging up and hauling away the soil, but rather treating the top 2 5 (Barry Riddle s idea). Here is a ballpark estimate: Soil disposal is typically about $50/ton. Assuming 1.5 tons/cubic yard (CY), this would be about $75/CY for soil disposal. Estimated 2,000 tons at this site [which would be 1,333 CY]. Budget for excavation and disposal = $100,000. Budget for oversight, arrange disposal = $100,000. Barry Riddle s concept, from NASA s onsite treatment of soils: 1. Add chemicals to fix the contaminants 2. Till in place until reactions are complete 3. Sample & test to verify Lance Warner: This would mix it to get aerobic and anaerobic, or the little bugs to eat it? Wes Poole: How long would this take? Bob Haag: Less than a year. Barry Riddle: At NASA the Army Corps dug the soil up, mixed it and then put it back. Bob Haag: Here, we are talking about mixing the soil in place. 6

8 Bob Haag: The handwritten marks on this slide are my calculations to determine the volume for excavation. These calculations were done using M P s drilling logs to get depth to bedrock. 3 was used to estimate depth to bedrock in the black areas of the proposed excavation. In another place the estimate was 2 for excavation. There are a lot of data points that give pretty good confidence that there is not much soil at this site. 7

9 Bob Haag: From a previous meeting, this is the cost benefit analysis of different types of remediation. In situ stabilization has lower benefit scores. Excavating and hauling away has a higher benefit score. Some people say it is gone, but really it is just moved to someone else s backyard. Lance Warner: But in the long run it is not better? Bob Haag: It is just moving the soil around. Barry Riddle: What do we know about what is below the floors? Bob Haag: The VAP process is very optimistic, you look at a Phase I and see where things are, and you sample there in the Phase II. However, experience shows that when a floor is taken up, there will be a surprise. I called ODOD and was told that they allow a 10% contingency to estimate for this eventuality. Wes Poole: What is there, where did it come from, and how did it get through the concrete floor? Bob Haag: Asks himself the same question. I looked at the Phase I and Sanborn maps. The site started as a cooperage, they made wooden barrels. Wes Poole: Are you suggesting that the contamination was there before the concrete floor? Bob Haag: Yes. 8

10 Bob Haag: The committee looked at in situ stabilization once before, when we were talking about coal tar stabilization. In this example, a large auger injects the stabilizing agent or nutrients. The nutrients go out laterally as the auger spins. I worked on one of these to a depth of 70 for a major auto dealer. Also, HaagEnviro did a pilot like this for a heavilycontaminated petroleum site; we had three cells and used a backhoe mounted auger to do the mixing. There are options that are easier and less expensive. 9

11 Bob Haag: If we used asystem like they use for injecting pig manure (top photos), we might cut a little swath and put the nutrients near to the surface, but we might not be able to get deep enough. Farm deep tilling equipment can only get to a depth of 24. The two photos on the bottom show equipment that can be put in the ground and dragged along to inject the nutrients to our depth. The photo at the lower right is a bulldozer with rockripping teeth. The concept of the dozer might be the best option. 10

12 Bob Haag: Here are the chemicals that we are we trying to fix in place or degrade. Lead, arsenic and chromium can be fixed in place. The volatile chemicals include two chlorinated solvents (TCE and DCE), and everything else is a petroleum product. The Benzo chemicals are called coal tar chemicals. The coal tar plume didn t move to here, these are just similar chemicals. Petroleum can be biodegraded in place with the addition of nutrients and oxygen. Volatiles are chemicals that want to volatilize, or go into the air. 11

13 Bob Haag: Clay minerals, organic carbon, or other chemicals might be used to fix the metals. This would be added to the soil and tilled in. 12

14 Bob Haag: These are the chemicals that could be biodegraded with the addition of microbes. If the City moves forward with the CORF grant application, we could explore this. Sharon Johnson: Wonders if the City is going to get a CORF grant? Bob Haag: We are trying to convince the City to let us apply for the grant. Sharon Johnson: Wonders what it will cost. Wes Poole wonders to what cleanup level. Bob Haag: It would be to the leaching and residential. Wes Poole: Without leaching it would be $50,000 less. There followed a discussion about the funding for brownfields. The Commission previously rated funding of brownfields in the upper 40% of its priorities. City Engineer Todd Roth wants to use some of the City s HUD revolving loan funds (RLF) to pay for brownfields. Sharon Johnson: That is a good idea. Bob Haag: Doing brownfield work is on HUD s good list, the City can take a certain amount of money from the RLF to be spent as a grant. Tim Schwanger: What is the cost to do the application? Bob Haag: We have estimated $20,000 to $30,000, but that seems too high. 13

15 Bob Haag: The next part of our meeting is to ask the committee about applying for the next round of USEPA grants. Bob and Ruth attended a USEPA webinar about this round of grants. (There was no charge to the City for attending the webinar). For the grant applications, USEPA wants us to tell what is wrong with the City, and the problems that we describe don t necessarily have to be brownfield problems. High on the list is unemployment, due to closing of auto plants, for example. At the back end of the grant application, they want us to show how doing brownfield work will help solve the problems that we identified. So, if we use unemployment at the front of the grant application, we have to show how unemployment problems will be helped at the back end of the grant application. The projects have to be brownfield projects, but the results can solve non brownfield problems. We are in good shape on knowing sites and projects. Sharon Johnson: So as far as we know, Sandusky Cabinets is dead in the water until we get a grant? Bob Haag: Until Todd Roth decides how to pay for the grant application. Tim Schwanger: How are we going to show that the grant will help unemployment problems? Bob Haag: We don t have to use that as our issue to solve. We might say, We have a lot of ugly dilapidated brownfield properties and as a result of this grant we will make beautiful places for people to live, work and play. 14

16 PRIOR NOTES: Bob Haag reviewed all 38 of the industrial 1950 Sanborn maps, but didn t want to burden everyone by posting them all in this presentation. The blue areas above show Bob s compilation of areas containing industries in Lance Warner: What do you estimate as the cost of a Phase I on the entire City? Bob Haag: We budgeted $10,000 in the next round of assessment grants, which would go to buy the Sanborn maps. Lance: One would have to determine what chemicals they used in each place. Bob: Agreed. As an interesting example, City Ice is now located where a tank farm used to be, and Fire Chief Paul Ricci showed Bob and Ruth pictures of the fire in which the tank farm burned. NEW NOTES : Bob Haag: On the grant application we can t simply say, we are poor, downand out, and when you (USEPA) give us the money, we will figure out how to use it. We need to say what we have been doing. We all have been working on sites. This map is a pretty good indication of where the sites are. We have also done meetings in which we determined what we want to redevelop the sites into. We have prioritized the sites, re prioritized and ripped them apart, now we are pretty well set on this aspect of the grant application. 15

17 PRIOR NOTES: Bob Haag: Here is how the committee has prioritized the sites: DC Filter #1, Sandusky Cabinets #2, Coal Tar #3, Lions Park #4, Ice House, if the owner wants it #5, Keller Building asbestos and TCE #6. As noted in the comments under the following General Update slides, Keller TCE was later moved up to #5, and the Ice house was set to #6. The group placed the following sites on the low priority list: Dixon Ticonderoga, Tricor, Jackson Street Parking Lot, Water Street Parking lot. The group recommended that the following sites be deleted from the list: Surf s Up, Battery Park Parking Lot, City Hall (had been included because of the now defunct Marina District Project), TCE Plume (didn t quality for Phase II funding), Coal Docks 1 & 2 (didn t qualify for Phase II funding), Citizens Bank Parking Lot (done). 16

18 This the list that we had at the last meeting in which we reviewed priorities. The information at the bottom was Bob Haag s concept of developing corridors, but it is not certain that that concept has gotten a lot of traction. Bob Haag: Recently we received the announcement that $45,000 was going to go to APEX. We wondered how this decision had been made, without input from this brownfield committee. At a recent Commissioner Saturday Coffee Meeting, Mayor Dan Kaman said the City had approached APEX. Bob Haag asked who approached them, and Dan Kaman said he wouldn t tell. 17

19 Bob Haag: The assessment grant program only allows projects that involve investigation. We propose these are the sites that are candidates for investigation, if we do the grant application. The USEPA wants us to investigate the Coal Tar plume more. Wes Poole: Why aren t we dong that? Bob Haag: We are out of money. These are sites that could be for future investigation. Sharon Johnson: Why are we still talking about them? Bob Haag: This committee keeps putting them on the list. Lance Warner: People die, you have to keep in contact with the site owners to see if anything changes. This is to say where can we move forward. The State of Ohio has put high priority on creating ways to make jobs in the green and sustainability markets. If you identified a site to do this, you might get more traction from the State. Bob Haag: If we recommend that the City acquire G&C, that might be a good thing. Joe Hayberger: Regarding the Camp Street debris, what about the safety issue? Someone could be taken in there, killed, and it would be a long time before anyone knew about that. Bob Haag: I put debris piles into the last brownfield assessment grant application. The City has a lot of dump sites, the piles would be sampled and tested and taken away. Wes Poole: I think we should do that. Bob Haag: There are other piles, the Tricor piles were like that. Joe Hayberger: This (the Camp Street pile area) should be gone. Bob Haag: I am not sure if G&C looks better or worse, now that it is demolished. Lance 18

20 Warner: G&C is our best area for industrial development. If we could find a candidate, the current owners would partner with the City and provide the land. They don t want to incur any more expense. We need to find someone capable to market it. Wes Poole: The Erie County Economic Development Corporation (ECEDC) should so that. The group thinks that ECEDC should come to these brownfield meetings. Tim Schwanger: How many piles are on the Camp Street site? Bob Haag: piles. Lance Warner: What is the makeup? Bob: General construction debris, sidewalk pieces. A City employee said he put them there. Lance Warner: With what we are doing at Lions Park (planning to crush the debris and use it as road base) is this an ideal time to use the same process? Gary Guendelsberger. If the City is regularly dumping debris on a site, aren t they going to start it again, once this debris is removed? Wes Poole: Commission needs to address this and make a policy. Tim Schwanger: Wonders what the cost is to check the piles. Bob Haag: This was estimated in the last grant application, but I don t remember the number right now. Tim Schwanger: At the Bayfront Cooridor Committee Meeting it was said that they are going to use Lion s Park debris on the overpass. If the Camp Street debris is just concrete, is there any reason to think it will be a problem? Bob Haag: HaagEnviro did inspect the piles at Lion s Park and said there was no need to sample. We have not looked at those on Camp Street. Lance Warner: Suggests that they go out and make an assessment to decide if it would be appropriate fill for the overpass. Bob Haag: The only thing to add is, if you can t determine origin of the debris then you don t know if it is hazardous waste. Bob Haag: we can mention it to Todd Roth when we meet with him. Sharon Johnson: We need to assess where all the piles are in the City. Gary Guendelsberger: Does this all come back to finding appropriate funding to allow HaagEnviro to move forward? Bob Haag: Yes. Gary: There is money ($700,000) sitting in the RLF, what is the problem? Lance Warner: $400,000 in the RLF is going to be used for a project of Lance s. 18

21 This is a reminder of the sites and their location. 19

22 Bob Haag: Here are some of the things that we could do with an assessment grant. 20

23 Bob Haag: We could consider a pilot coal tar recovery system, under an assessment grant. 21

24 Bob Haag: We could also evaluate the two coal tars, as we had planned under our last assessment grant. 22

25 Bob Haag: We could investigate the TCE plume. 23

26 Bob Haag: We could assess DC filter, as we had planned under our prior assessment grant. 24

27 Bob Haag: The USEPA RLF grant would provide money for the City to loan to people who have sites with contamination. Originally, the idea of applying for the RLF was based on helping DC filter. 25

28 Bob Haag: The USEPA cleanup grants are for $200,

29 Bob Haag: A cleanup grant might be used on part of the coal tar plume. 27

30 Bob Haag: We could apply to clean up part of Sandusky Cabinets. 28

31 Bob Haag: We could apply to clean up the TCE plume. 29

32 The meeting ended at 8:26 AM. Joe Hayberger: Do they ever talk about safety in the grant applications? Bob Haag: If we put it in at the front end of the application, and then at the back end show how safety would be improved, it could work. Bob Haag: Wants to know if the group agrees that the City should apply for these grants. Sharon Johnson: Get anything you can get your hands on. Lance Warner: Thinks we should not wait for a grant to do the Camp Street waste, it should be assessed and used as fill because it would be less expensive than getting fill from the quarry. Bob: We will ask Todd Roth when we meet with him. Gary Guendelsberger: Where do you gain access to the Camp Street site? Bob Haag: Described the location to gain access. Wes Poole: There is water running through the walls of the subway there, is it contaminated? Will the fix of the subway stop that? Bob Haag: We know from Todd Roth that they had to do a small phase I for Hisers, so they did assess it. Wes: Would like to hear about that, the worst area would be on the west side. Tim Schwanger: Who made this a brownfield site? Bob Haag: Brownfield sites can be perceived contamination, they do not have to have contamination. 30

33 Bob Haag: Paul Ricci has been working on the vacant building legislation. He is going to come here and talk about it at the next brownfield meeting. Paul Ricci then came in, and asked about the Esmond Dairy property. The owner wants to get rid of it and doesn t have much funding. Bob Haag: Did Paul see hazardous material when he toured the property? Paul: Not really. There were some oil drums and transformers on the property. Bob: It would be reasonable to do a standard Phase I followed by no Phase II. Sharon Johnson: Will the owner cooperate with us? Paul: Rudy will talk to her. They are also looking at Weed and Seed and land banking. 30