‘Risk-Based’ Policy Lets Oil Remain Arco Saves On Soil Cleanup Under State Ecology’s Rules

The state Ecology Department’s new “risk-based” standard for petroleum cleanup - allowing contamination to remain if it poses no threat to human health or the environment - is saving millions of dollars for Arco.

Los Angeles-based Arco has two tainted sites on Harbor Island at the mouth of the Duwamish River - a 12-acre site on the river’s western channel and 6 acres inland - both saturated with 60 years’ worth of petroleum products, said Nnamdi Madakor, project manager for Ecology.

“There’s a lot of petroleum in Arco’s soil and groundwater. … But for most of the 18 acres, nothing will be done about it,” Madakor said in a recent interview with the Daily Journal of Commerce.

Ecology’s interim policy, adopted a year ago, is saving Arco “millions of dollars,” he said.

The policy allows landowners to leave high levels of total petroleum hydrocarbons, called TPH, on site if they can prove it poses no threat to people or the environment.

Arco’s environmental consultant, Geraghty & Miller, used computerized “fate and transport modeling” to show that most of the tainted groundwater at the Arco sites is not migrating into the Duwamish or Elliott Bay.

There is one problem area, the consultant found: Contaminants are entering the river from a riverside warehouse.

Madakor verified the findings, which require Arco to keep pumping out contaminants floating atop the water table under the warehouse. Since 1992, 10,000 gallons of TPH have been extracted and the effort must continue until all the floating “free product” is gone and the groundwater meets stringent cleanup standards.

“We’re going to do aggressive cleanup there because that area presents a risk to human health,” Madakor said.

As for the rest of the Arco property, “If the free product does not get to the shoreline, Ecology does not require them to do anything about it,” he said.

So rather than being required to excavate tons of tainted soil or treat the ground in place, Arco will simply do longterm groundwater monitoring to make sure the contamination is not reaching the river, the bay or neighboring properties.

The two sites also will be permanently deed-restricted as industrial property, Madakor said.

He conceded he’s still adjusting to the policy that allows much contamination to remain.

“I don’t feel very good about it, but the policy allows it so that’s what we have to do,” the hydrogeologist said. “It’s a different state of mind and a new day. … We have to adapt.”

The department considers Harbor Island a special case because the groundwater beneath it will never be tapped for drinking, said TPH project coordinator Steve Robb.

“We don’t set a goal of ‘pristine’ for an industrial site like this,” he said.

Before the interim TPH policy was adopted, petroleum-tainted sites had to meet tough standards even if they were industrial.

Under the state’s Model Toxics Control Act, the “clean” standard was 100 milligrams of gasoline per kilogram of soil, 200 mg/kg of diesel fuel and 200 mg/kg of oil - a total of 500 mg/kg of TPH. For groundwater that could be used for drinking, the maximum allowable level remains 1 milligram of TPH per liter.

Madakor says 167,000 mg/kg of TPH have been found in soil at the Arco sites, and 1,170 milligrams per liter in the groundwater.

But, he said, “You can leave it there so long as it’s not going anyplace.”

Madakor also is Ecology’s project manager for cleanup of the Texaco and GATX, formerly Shell, tank farms on Harbor Island. Similar decisions are expected for the TPH problems there, though soils will have to be treated for lead and arsenic because “workers could inhale that.”

Texaco and GATX also will be required to do longterm groundwater monitoring to ensure TPH contamination doesn’t reach waterways or neighbors.

Harbor Island is a federal Superfund site and all cleanup there is being overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But the EPA has delegated authority for tank-farm cleanup, covering about a third of the island, to Ecology.

Costs for cleanup of EPA’s two-thirds of the island are expected to total about $35 million, said Keith Rose, EPA’s remedial project manager there. Those efforts will include capping and digging up “petroleum hotspot” soil - where levels exceed 10,000 mg/kg, he said.

Asked about that standard’s impact on the Arco levels nearly 17 times as high, Madakor said: “Ecology couldn’t even enforce the EPA’s record of decision (for hotspots) because the interim policy allows flexibility.”

The former Lockheed Shipyard site was cleaned up to EPA standards. Lockheed-Martin Corp. financed that effort, which involved treatment of 3,400 tons of petroleum-contaminated soil. Lockheed also has to keep monitoring its site, now owned by the Port of Seattle.

Under the interim Ecology policy, Arco’s 12-acre site next door is spared the pricey and complicated cleanup - a concern to Lockheed, which worries Arco’s contamination could reach the former shipyard.

Ecology is requiring Arco to make sure its contamination stops at the property line, Madakor said.

“Ecology is really caught between a hard place and a rock,” he said. “We don’t want to become part of a lawsuit because we didn’t do our job.”

The interim risk-based policy will be replaced by a formal Model Toxics Control Act rule amendment this year, Robb said.

Other states - including Oregon, California, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Illinois and Wisconsin - also are adopting the risk-based corrective action approach, largely developed by the American Society for Testing and Materials.

Backing the new policy are industries and institutions that own tainted property. The Washington, D.C.-based RBCA Leadership Council is made up of the American Petroleum Institute, the American Iron & Steel Institute and the Chemical Manufacturers Association.

“Our incentive is to protect the environment,” Robb said. “Their incentive is to protect both the environment and shareholders.

“I think there’s a way we can do both.”