[CPEO-MEF] Water treatment plant's future in limbo after fire

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

[Massachusetts]
Water treatment plant's future in limbo after fire
Air Force, environmental officials to meet about replacing plant vital
to cleanup.

By KEVIN DENNEHY and SEAN GONSALVES
STAFF WRITERS
MASHPEE - Air Force officials will meet with environmental regulators
next week to discuss replacing a water treatment facility critical to
the Superfund cleanup at the Massachusetts Military Reservation.

 Since 1999, the treatment plant has cleaned 1 billion gallons of water
contaminated by ethylene dibromide (EDB) from Fuel Spill 1 on the base's
southeastern border. The facility was gutted by fire Sunday night.

The blaze triggered an automatic shutdown of the treatment plant,
according to Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence spokesman
Douglas Karson. It is not known when environmental cleanup efforts will
resume at the site.

Local activists are worried that with the plant off-line the plume of
EDB, an aviation fuel component, flowing in the aquifer will continue to
travel farther into Mashpee. The EDB, which can cause liver and kidney
damage, had previously reached town-owned cranberry bogs and now
threatens nearby Johns Pond and the Quashnet River.

Military officials are still trying to determine how much of the $1
million facility can be salvaged.

Next week they will meet with officials from the state Department of
Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency
to discuss the next step in getting the plant back online.

Jacobs Engineering, the company orchestrating the massive base cleanup
project for the Air Force, will analyze a computerized model of the
plume to determine if and how it will be affected by the plant shutdown.

"You can calculate where it's going to flow to, how fast it's going to
be and what the contamination concentration will be," Karson said.

However, Karson said he doesn't expect a high risk of increased
contamination.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/watertreatment16.htm

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