Ketchikan Pulp Company, AK

A.30 Ketchikan Pulp Company, AK

A.30.1 Contacts

Regulatory Contact:

Karen Keely

US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10:

206-553-2141

A.30.2 Summary

Environment:	Cove
Scale:	Full
Contaminants of Concern:	Arsenic, PCBs, lead, petroleum compounds, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and 4-methylphenol
Source Control Achieved Prior to Remedy Selection?	Yes
Final Remedy:	Removal, Capping, MNR
Expected Recovery Time:	Remedy complete-7 years
MNR viewed as a success?	Yes

A.30.3 Site Description

The former KPC mill is located on the northern shoreline of Ward cove, approximately 5 miles north of Ketchikan, Alaska. Ward Cove is located on the north side of Tongass Narrows and is approximately 1 mile long with a maximum width of 0.5 mile. The orientation of the Cove is southwest to northeast. The Cove is bounded by Slide Ridge to the north and Ward Mountain to the south. Surrounding terrain is mountainous and forested. The shoreline of the Cove is mostly rocky and relative steep. Ward Creek is the major source of freshwater inflow; the creek enters the head of the Cove. The primary sources of contamination at this site are historical wastewater discharges from the former Ketchikan Pulp Company (KPC) pulp mill.

The KPC facility began operations as a dissolving sulfite pulp mill in 1954 and discharged pulp mill effluent to Ward Cove until March 1997, when pulping operations terminated. Equipment associated with the pulp mill operations has been dismantled and removed from the site. In November 1999, the KPC upland mill property and patented tidelands in Ward Cove were sold to Gateway Forest Products Company, Inc. (Gateway). Gateway planned to use the site to operate a sawmill and a veneer mill, producing lumber and veneer, chips for pulp, and hog fuel as a byproduct.

A.30.4 Remedial Objectives

RAO(s)/Project objectives:

Reduce toxicity of surface sediments
Enhance recolonization of surface sediments to support a healthy marine benthic infaunaBenthic invertebrates that live almost exclusively in or below the sediment/water interface. These are generally tube- or burrow-dwelling organisms that feed at either the sediment/water interface or burrow and ingest sediments and/or sediment-dwelling organisms. community with multiple taxonomic groups.

A.30.5 Remedial Approach

Final selected remedy: Dredging, cappingTechnology which covers contaminated sediment with material to isolate the contaminants from the surrounding environment., MNR

The selected remedy consists of the following actions:

Placement of a thin-layer capA covering over material (contaminated sediment) used to isolate the contaminants from the surrounding environment. (approximately 6 to 12 inches) of clean, sandy material over approximately 27-acres with the area of concern (AOC).
Dredging of approximately 8,701 yd³ of bottom sediments from an area in front of the main dock and an area near the shallow draft barge berth area to accommodate navigational depths, with disposal of the dredged sediments at an upland location. The dredging volume estimate was less than expected because native, clean sediments were encountered at a shallower depth than anticipated. After dredging, a thin-layer cap of clean, sandy material was constructed in dredged areas where native sediment or bedrock was not reached during dredging.
Approximately 680 tons of sunken logs were removed from the bottom of Ward Cove in areas to be dredged.
Natural recovery was selected as the remedy in areas where neither capping nor mounding is feasible. In areas where thin-layer placement was not constructed, allowed for monitored natural recovery in approximately 52 acres.
Institutional controls requiring that post-remediationThe act or process of abating, cleaning up, containing, or removing a substance (usually hazardous or infectious) from an environment. activities within the AOC that materially damage the thin-layer cap will be required to redress such damage, at the direction of USEPA.

The selected remedy represents the best balance of tradeoffs under the Superfund evaluation criteria. Because the problem sediment in Ward Cove did not pose unacceptable risk to human health or to wildlife through bioaccumulationThe accumulation of substances, such as pesticides, or other organic chemicals in an organism. Bioaccumulation occurs when an organism absorbs a toxic substance at a rate greater than that at which the substance is lost. Thus, the longer the biological half-life of the substance the greater the risk of chronic poisoning, even if environmental levels of the toxin are not very high. of chemicals from sediments, the key concern was how well the selected remedy addressed toxic risks to benthic communities living in the sediments. Placement of a thin-layer cap, or dredging of problem sediment followed by capping provided a suitable habitat for benthic communities. The selected remedy was also more cost effective than removing all of the problem sediment.

Other considerations in remedy selection include the following:

Available in situ treatment technologies would be difficult to implement and may not be effective on the scale required for sediments in Ward Cove.
Costs for in situ remediation would be high and there would likely be little or no improvement in ecological conditions within Ward Cove.
Dredging of problem sediments followed by separation of fine wood debris from the dredged sediments would be difficult to implement (requiring significant material handling), would generate large amounts of wastewater that would require treatment, and would be extremely costly while producing little or no environmental benefit.

A.30.6 Monitoring Approach

Monitoring elements: The monitoring program will evaluate three major indicators of sediment quality including the sediment chemistry, sediment toxicity, and macroinvertebrateAny organism that will, after sieving out surface water and fine suspended matter, be retained on a 0.5 mm mesh (No. 35 Standard Sieve) screen. communities. The primary objectives of the Ward Cove monitoring program are as follows:

Compare sediment toxicity in the thin capped and natural recovery areas in the AOC with sediment toxicity in reference areas located elsewhere in the cove.
Compare the characteristics of benthic communities in thin capped and natural recovery areas in the AOC with the characteristics of communities in reference areas located elsewhere in the cove.
Evaluate temporal trends in sediment toxicity in the thin capped and natural recovery areas of the AOC.
Evaluate temporal trends in the characteristics of benthic macroinvertebrate communities found in the thin capped and natural recovery areas of the AOC.
Evaluate chemical concentrations and their relationship to sediment toxicity and benthic community structure.

RAOs/project objectives achieved? Remediation activities were completed in 2001. In 2009, USEPA approved the final 2007 Monitoring Report for Sediment Remediation in Ward Cove, Alaska. The USEPA concurred that the RAOs for the sediment remedy were achieved, that the remedy is protective of human health and the environment, and monitoring pursuant the long-term monitoring and reporting plan is no longer necessary.

A.30.7 References

USEPA Region 10, the Pacific Northwest, Ketchikan Pulp Company. http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/cleanup.nsf/1a16218b78d8c4d58825674500015b42/2dd5ab7462e4f004882567b30057eb7b!OpenDocument.

EPA Superfund Record of Decision, Ketchikan Pulp Company. http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/rods/fulltext/r1000035.pdf.

Publication Date: August 2014

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