Date: Fri 02-May-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Dodgintown-gasoline-clean-up

Full Text:

Dogingtown Gasoline Clean-Up Faces Delay

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Installation of a permanent system to remove gasoline from the groundwater

supply in the Cemetery Road area of Dodgingtown has been delayed, probably

until June, because a zoning variance is needed.

State and local officials had believed that a series of eight bedrock wells

and a water treatment system would be online by the second week of May. But

Kevin Gumper, an attorney representing Island Transportation Company, said on

Wednesday that it may be another six weeks before the temporary system is

replaced.

Mr Gumper said it has been determined that a variance will be needed from the

Zoning Board of Appeals; the ZBA is required to advertise the appeal twice

before scheduling a public hearing. The town also must agree to allow the

groundwater treatment equipment to be placed on a piece of town-owned property

off Cemetery Road, the attorney said.

The equipment would be housed in an 8-by-10-by-8-foot wooden enclosure, which

will be painted and fenced in an effort to make it look as inconspicuous as

possible, he said.

Once the permanent system is operational, the temporary system will be shut

down, the whole area will be cleaned up, landscaping will be restored and the

road eventually will be repaved, he said.

"This is not a short-time operation," Mr Gumper said. "We will be on this site

a minimum of two years, maybe seven or even ten."

The multi-million-dollar clean-up operation began last October after a tanker

truck carrying approximately 9,100 gallons of gasoline crashed and burned on

Route 302 in front of George's Pizza & Restaurant. Gasoline washed over the

restaurant's parking lot, down an embankment into the historic Dodgingtown

cemetery.

In March, when clean-up costs reached a point that Island Transportation had

to turn to its backup catastrophic insurance coverage, Anderson Mulholland

Associates, Inc, of New York City, was brought in to replace Omni

Environmental Corporation of Amherst, Mass., as the consulting firm

coordinating the clean-up.

"Anderson Mulholland used the data in the report prepared by Omni but modified

some of the remedial activity," said William G. Warzecha, an environmental

analyst with the state Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of

Water Management.

"The main objective is to control the plume of gasoline, which has been moving

in a downward gradient since the spill," Mr Warzecha said. "Eight extraction

wells have been installed in an east-west direction a little south of the

cemetery near the road, not on the knoll. These wells will pump at a higher

rate than the existing system."

The wells extract groundwater which is then treated to remove traces of MTBE,

a chemical found in gasoline, and discharged into Limekilm Brook, he said.

Mr Warzecha said gasoline did get into the bedrock around the area of the

spill so deeper wells were dug than originally had been planned. He said that

Anderson Mulholland does not believe that a pool of gasoline is sitting on top

of the groundwater beneath the cemetery, so a proposal to do directional

drilling under the cemetery won't be pursued at this time.

"If the monitoring wells pick up a rush of the free form product [gasoline],

then we will know differently," Mr Warzecha said. "But at this point the level

of MTBE in the water is low and looks as if it has peaked already."

The temporary system has been pumping and treating eight to ten gallons of

groundwater per minute; the permanent system will be more aggressive, handling

20 to 25 gallons per minute, he said.

Wells at homes near the spill are being monitored and some carbon filtration

systems were installed although the traces of MTBE in the water from those

wells never reached a level deemed hazardous, he said. A filtration system

also was installed at the restaurant.

"We want to totally capture and contain the gasoline plume before it impacts

the brook or any other homes," Mr Warzecha said. "With the current low levels

(of MTBE) the delay in implementing the permanent system isn't critical, but

we would like to see it expedited, if possible."