Leveling at the site of the demolished primary school building last month was completed independent of concerns about contaminated soil there, said Brian Lemcke, the Haines Borough’s interim director of public facilities.
He spoke with representatives from Carson Dorn Inc. of Juneau and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation before the borough public works department started grading.
“I said, ‘Can we grade this place and make it look a little more presentable?’” Lemcke said. “They said, ‘Absolutely. What’s in the ground is not going to be affected by cleaning that site up and making it look better.’”
He said money from a maintenance budget would cover the few hours of work.
Lemcke said in the next few months the borough would address contaminated soil at the site.
“There is definitely some oil in the ground,” he said. “There was a leaking oil tank at the primary school, and it had been leaking for quite some time.”
Anne Marie Palmieri, an environmental specialist for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, is overseeing the cleanup.
“They found contamination back in 2005, and then they went and excavated some contamination in 2009, but the contamination was larger, the extent was greater and it went underneath the building,” Palmieri said. “It was just a much bigger project than they were able to deal with at the time.”
The demolition of the building in 2010 revealed more contamination, she said.
“Last year, when the borough decided to remove the building, part of the contract was to also excavate some of the contaminated soil,” Palmieri said. “Again, there was more contaminated soil than they had first thought, that had traveled underneath the building, because they didn’t know how far it extended.”
She has asked the borough to prepare a work plan for a site investigation, and to determine the extent of contamination in the soil and see if there is any ground water contamination.
“Everywhere that they installed a test pit, contamination was present,” Palmieri said. “What they will have to do is install test pits until they find clean soil, and that way they can determine exactly how far the contamination migrated.”
She advised that the recent grading there would have no impact on the underground contamination.
“This particular soil, since it is sub-surface, our main concern is contamination migrating to ground water and then ending up in surface water,” Palmieri said. “It is not a health risk to humans who are walking by or might be walking their dog over there or even kids who might be playing on the playground.”
She noted there were no reports of contamination at the former elementary school, a portion of which was spared from demolition.