> Christine
> Friends of Penobscot Bay's comments on the VRAP application were sent to Nick Hodgkins today 12/11/14 as an email It is pasted in below, including the links in the original email . Our concerns are summarized at the beginning of the comments.,followed by details.> Unless these changes are adopted, Friends of Penobscot Bay and likely several other entities will appeal the plan.
>
> Stockton Harbor's Code Enforcement officer wasn't informed - he was not happy when I let him know - his town shares the harbor with GAC .
> He supports more of the shore waste removed and an end to the plumes entering the harbor. (I sent him a copy of the application)
> Ron
> ------------------------------
> Ron Huber <coastwatch@gmail.com>
> 2:13 PM (5 hours ago)
>
> to Nick, Friends,
>
> From Friends of Penobscot Bay
>
> December 11, 2014
>
> Re: the GAC application to perform limited remediation under the Voluntary Response Action Program
>
> Dear Nick,
> Friends of Penobscot Bay is a citizens' association dedicated to protecting and restoring the living natural resources of of Penobscot Bay. We and our precessor groups have made our concerns about the eroding wastes of GAC Chemical known to the Department of Envirormental Protection since the mid 1990s. We are very glad the GAC has stopped denying the existence of its eroding wastes and proposed to remediate. However the VRAP plan as described in the application is far too limited in scope to be adequate for approval by DEP under VRAP. We ask that DEP not approve GAC's VRAP plan until minimum the below changes are incorporated into it.
>
> 1. Require study of all eroding and leached wastes that have already entered the intertidal cove adjacent to the site and from it into the greter harbor.
> 2. Demolish and remove the abandoned acid factory and abandoned acid tank
> 3. Enlarge area of shore stabilization & liming to full south side of point, not only directly below the old sulfur pile. Examine all GACs shore-retaining struvtures for staibility and for erosion and leachate discharges.
> 4. Raise the level of "public communication" under VRAP from Tier 2 to Tier 3.
> 5. Supply the town of Stockton Springs & Army Corps of Engineers with copy of the application; they share Stockton Harbor and are interested parties by definitions of VRAP's tier system
>
> We also find the GAC VRAP application deficient and almost deceptive by its lack of any of the easily available photographs of the site that show the very evident waste plumes emanating from the company property site.
>
>
> DETAILS
> 1. Longterm discharges into the intertidal flats must be investigated and addressed.
> The VRAP application uses several very weak and contradictory arguments as justifications to assert that the intertidal flats need not be investigated for the contaminants that have been deposited there via erosin and leachate discharges within the plumes entering those flats over the past 70 years.
>
> First, the application claims there are no contaminants of concern within the sediments, citing two reports (where no sampling or testing was actually carried out) . Rather, the site was merely eyeballed. Then the application contradicts itself by claiming these same "clean" sediments are too polluted to be removed via surface sediment removal, because it asserts, significant contaminants would then resupended and harm the harbor biota.
>
> GAC Chemical can't have it both ways. DEP has adequate information to determine that significant amounts of wastes have entered the tidal flats below the site from the Kidder Point property. A cove wide study and a harbor wide study are necessary to arrive at a picture of the waste loads within those flats. This will inform further action.
>
> Two contaminants of concern are well documented as leaving the property and entering the flats and cove. These are are sulfuric acid and aluminium from spent bauxite ore. The 1998 John Sowles memo notes the extensive presence of aluminum in the soiled flats and identifies one of their sources as GAC Chemical's eroding property. The 1998 report notes the plant operator at the time as pointing out the location of the acidic bauxite wastes along the shore. It is therefore highly likely that the flats' mud is significantly tainted with aluminum.
>
> What Mr Sowles didn't note is that in the presence of low pH, a very marine life-unfriendly form of aluminum, "monomeric aluminum" is released from the ore. It then enters the water column and sediments. This elemental form of aluminum is very well known in the scientific literature as extremely lethal to fish & shellfish larvae and other planktonic life forms, due to its tendency to quickly "glaze" onto the gills of estuarine organisms, blocking respiration. For a quick survey of the literature, web search these 4 terms: "monomeric aluminum", gills, pH, estuary. The issue is serious and very well understood.
>
> Monomeric aluminum is known to have this lethality when the water/ pore water its in is below pH 6. Multiple tests have show the pH of a great deal of the waters and muds of the contaminated cove to fall below that threshold.
>
> If these two wastes are within the intertidal flats, then it is very likely that biotoxic monomeric aluminum is being released into the wter column by every storm, every clam digging and worm digging trench and pit, and by the scraping actions of ice atop the intertidal flat every winter as it fragments and moves across the flats. This latter must cause a great deal of these wastes to enter greater Stockton Harbor during the winter.
>
> For those reasons, leaving the tainted intertidal mud in place is not a sensible or reasonable option. The wastes are being resuspended by human and natural processes. GAC therefore needs to fund a comprehensive chemical study of the sediments of the pocket cove making up the SW corner of Stockton Harbor. This is where the preponderance of the site's wastes have been concentrated, and where many of the plumes go. The study needs to be done by a disinterested 3rd party environmental laboratory, not by GAC's longtime consultant CES.
>
> Therefore, FOPB requests the GAC VRAP plan be modified to require a sediment survey and removal of monomeric aluminum-tainted wastes, to the extent possible using standard intertidal flat shallow dredging technology that minimize resuspensions.
>
> (2) The abandoned acid factory & abandoned acid tank on the point need to be demolished and the soils and fill beneath them tested and remediated to the extent possible. While the VRAP plan is supposedly focused on impacts from the sulfuric acid factory and tank, it does not propose to remove these two decaying facilities. Only removal of sulfur wastes remaining at a former sulfur staging site. and some removals for slope stabilization This is unacceptable, Aerial photo (large) shows very clearly that these two facilities are major contributors of wastes via plumes that discharge beneath them then out from the base of the slope.
>
> (3) The area of shoreline slope stabilization is far too small in the application. At minimum, the entire south shore of the point, from the old pipe leading offshore to the railroad track, needs remediation. Wastes are visibly eroding into the cove from that entire length. In particular the shore where the highly visible leachate waste plumes are being discharged from the acid plant and tank. Imagea of shore conditions indicate more shore stabilizatoin is necessary
>
> (4) The level of "public communication" under VRAP, must be raised from Tier 2 to Tier 3.
> There are three levels or "Tiers" of public communication and public input response - Tier 1 being no input sought or outreach, then Tier 2 (GAC's preferred alternative) in which municipalities and other relevant governments are contacted, and Tier 3 level of public communication is required when "groundwater and/or surface water contamination above standard has impacted offsite properties." and reuqires engineering to remediate it.
>
> Friends of Penobscot Bay's position is that Tier 3 is the appropriate level of public communication. the aerial photographic record clearly shows wastes discharging as leachates via the shallow water aquifer and into the surface waters. Testing has shown that at least some of the leachates are "above standard" by having unsafe levels of sulfuric acid below pH 2, Further it is known that alum wastes when acidified release monomeric aluminum into the environment - combination known to be highly lethal to fish and shellfish species.
>
> The Department has received requests from a variety of stakeholders that a Tier 3 level of public communication be chosen. The application proposes to ignore the concerns of the public calls from the public, fishing organizations and others for Tier 3.
>
> We reject GAC's proposal for this to be for a Tier 2 public communication level. Per the VRAP Tier Decision Matrix (attached) the site has wastes at actionable levels leaving the site and entering both groundwater and surface water - both onsite and offsite.
>
> Those are Tier 3 triggers. Therefore the Department needs to require a Tier 3 review. There are hundreds of citizens including former employees of GAC and its predecessors onsite, who be pleased to share their knowledge of the location's pollution problems past and present. The state and company need to hold a public information meeting and otherwise seek input/ hearing on the plan. per Tier 3.
>
> 5. AFFECT GOVERNMENT ENTITIES NOT ALERTED The GAC Plan calls for a Level Two public communication which includes alerting the affected municipalities. Yet even under Level 2, the Town of Stockton Springs, and the Army Corps of Enginerers,which share the harbor waters with Searsport, should have been notified or sent a copy of the application. The US Army Corps of Engineers owns more than half the contaminated cove. MDEP Decisionmaking on the application needs to be delayed until those two government entities have reviewed the application.
>
> Thank you, Nick, for your review of our concerns. We may send additional information to you in the very near future. We look forward to your making the best of this remediation project, not merely the least effort needed to qualify as "remediation". Our bay is far too important for only a cosmetic cleanup. We find the GAC VRAP application also deficient by its lack of any photographs of the site that show the very evident waste plumes from their site.
>
> Sincerely best wishes
>
> Ron
>
> Ron Huber
> Friends of Penobscot Bay
> POB 1871
> Rockland Maine 04841
>
> FB: facebook.com/penobscotbay
> Web: www.penbay.net
> e: coastwatch@gmail.com
> tel: 207-691-7485 * cell 207-593-2744
>
>
