[CPEO-MEF] Superfund cleanup goes on and on

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Virginia
THE FREE LANCE-STAR
Superfund cleanup goes on and on
It's been a long haul to clean up area Superfund sites, and the job's
far from finished.
By Rusty Dennen
Date published: 11/9/2003

Environmental work at Dahlgren, Quantico bases far from finished

When Ann Swope began work as an environmental scientist 22 years ago at
Dahlgren, the Navy base was just getting started cleaning up a series of
polluted Superfund sites.

Swope will have to work another eight years to see the end of the
effort, which is supposed to wrap up in 2011.

"We had just finished the initial look when I got here," Swope said in a
recent interview and tour of several cleanup projects at the 4,300-acre
installation on the Potomac River in King George County.

Superfund, enacted by Congress in 1980 to identify and clean up the
nation's most polluted sites, is now 23 years old and still plodding
along at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, and four
other sites in the region--Quantico Marine Base, L.A. Clarke & Son in
Spotsylvania County, Culpeper Wood Preservers Inc. in Culpeper County
and Arrowhead Associates in Westmoreland County.

For reasons of funding, logistics and the time it takes for these
projects to wend their way through the federal bureaucracy and the
cleanup process, it will be years before all of them are done.

With less federal money in the pipeline for these cleanups, however,
fewer of them will be completed on schedule.

Even after the work is finished, all will require long-term monitoring
for residual effects such as groundwater contamination.

Federal facilities such as Dahlgren and Quantico fall under jurisdiction
of the Department of Defense.

At Dahlgren, dozens of polluted sites have been identified over the
years. The list eventually grew to 75 sites--11 were found to be of
sufficient concern to place them at the top of a priority list and all
but one of those has been restored. Overall, 43 projects have been
finished. Work is ongoing at six locations.

"Each year we update our site-management plan," Swope said. Swope and
Billy Weedon, the base environmental-restoration coordinator, oversee
the projects and coordinate with the Navy, Environmental Protection
Agency, contractors, and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.freelancestar.com/News/FLS/2003/112003/11092003/1155657

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