Sun. June 10,
2007
Chris O'Donnell
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Cleaning up the
majority of the polluted ground water in
Tallevast could take 30 years, and getting
it all could take a century, Lockheed Martin
officials say. But some experts fear that
the Tallevast pollution will never be
cleaned up completely.Lockheed's plan is to
build a series of wells and trenches from
which it will pump millions of gallons of
tainted ground water into a treatment system
and then discharge it into the Manatee
County sewer system.
Known as pump and
treat, the method has been used at hundreds
of polluted sites across the country. But
some experts have become increasingly
critical of the approach, saying it is
inefficient and often fails to restore
ground water in a reasonable time frame. One
critic is George Robinson, vice president of
Oasis Nuclear and a former nuclear power
plant operator who worked to clean up Three
Mile Island nuclear plant after its partial
meltdown in 1979.
"You're dealing
with an unknown volume of water," Robinson
said. "That pump and treat sounds good, but
30 years sounds optimistic. It could be
forever."
The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency has in the
past 10 years encouraged companies involved
in cleanup operations to develop and adopt
alternative approaches.
"The EPA has
started realizing that pump and treat does
not address a lot of issues and they need to
get the ground and the ground water beneath
cleaned up a lot quicker," said Michael D.
Campbell, a geological consultant and
managing director of the Institute of
Environmental Technology.
About 200 acres
of ground water are known to be polluted in
Tallevast. The pollution was left behind by
the former American Beryllium Co. plant,
which built parts for nuclear warheads for
the federal government for nearly 40 years.
Lockheed bought
the site in 1996 and shut down the plant. It
later sold the property, but not before
discovering soil and ground-water pollution
on and around the site. In 2000, Lockheed
notified county and state officials of the
pollution.
But the residents
of about 100 homes, many of whom relied on
well water, were not told of the problem
until nearly four years later. The
pollutants include trichloroethylene, or TCE,
which has been linked to liver and kidney
cancer and a host of other ailments.
Water is not safe
to drink if the level of TCE exceeds 3 parts
per billion, according to state standards.
The levels of TCE in Tallevast average 300.
One area close to the former weapons site
has levels as high as 13,000.
Wells in
Tallevast have since been sealed and
resident homes connected to the county
drinking water system.
Lockheed removed
about 530 tons of polluted soil in 2001.
Company officials say the remaining soil is
not polluted.
Whether Lockheed
has removed all the contamination from the
soil will be key to its success, said Kurt
Pennell, a Georgia Tech professor who has
advised the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency on site cleanups. "TCE goes onto the
soil and comes back off," Pennell said. "If
all the contaminants are in water, they will
get it out, but it's going to be relatively
expensive and it's going to take them quite
a while."
Building six
trenches, some as long as 900 feet, and
installing 52 wells will cost Lockheed about
$10 million. The company estimates the pump
and treat operation will cost nearly $1
million annually to run.
The process is so
lengthy because for every gallon of ground
water removed, another flows in from outside
the polluted area and mixes with
contaminated water.
Provided that the
soil within the aquifer is uncontaminated,
eventually the process will dilute the
pollutants to below the state standard for
drinking water. But that may mean Lockheed
will have to replace the water in the
200-acre plume seven times, Robinson said.
"The reason
they're saying 30 years is because they
don't know the volume of water," he said.
Lockheed is
further hampered by the high clay content of
the Floridan Aquifer. Clay is denser than
soil, making it more difficult to pump
ground water through it.
The company
calculates it will only be able to pump
about 120 gallons of water per minute. By
comparison, it pumps 9,000 gallons per
minute at another site it is cleaning up in
Burbank, Calif.
"The aquifer only
yields so much water, and that's our
limiting factor," said John Perella, a
project engineer with Arcadis BBL, a company
hired by Lockheed to manage the cleanup.
Lockheed will
also have to negotiate with property owners
to purchase easements to install some wells
and trenches.
That may not be
easy as many Tallevast residents blame
Lockheed for not disclosing it knew about
the pollution for several years. Also, about
200 residents have filed lawsuits seeking
damages from Lockheed.
"We'll have to
work with the state, to have the state talk
to them or find an alternative," said Gail
Rymer, a Lockheed spokeswoman.
The Florida
Department of Environmental Protection has
given FOCUS, a group representing Tallevast
residents, a deadline of June 20 to submit
comments or questions on Lockheed's plan.
The group's leaders said they are still
reviewing the plan.
"We believe
there's significant information not included
that needs to be," said Jeanne Zokovitch, an
attorney with WildLaw, a nonprofit
environmental group representing FOCUS.
Alternatives to
pump and treat include bioremediation, in
which pollutant-eating bacteria are injected
into the ground, and steam flushing in which
ground water is heated to the boiling point
and the resulting vapors extracted before
they go into the atmosphere.
Rymer said
Lockheed has not ruled out using
alternatives as the cleanup progresses but
believes pump and treat is the best approach
for Tallevast. She said the company is
committed to cleaning up the site for as
long as it takes or until the DEP says no
further action is needed.
