Greenversations

In 2009 dredging began in the Upper Hudson River to remove sediments with PCBs. Read more

With the formidable, 40-mile-long Hudson River dredging project underway, some people may have the idea that the river is off limits for recreation, but this isn’t the case. Granted there are a lot of project vessels on the water, especially around Rogers Island in Fort Edward, but by taking basic precautions for safety, people can use the river in all the ways they have in the past. As a matter of fact, the flurry of activity involves a lot of neat construction equipment, and people can visit the yacht basin in Fort Edward to see the dredging up close and personal.

To scoop the 400,000 tons of sediment (more than 94 acres) targeted this year, GE has mobilized an armada of equipment, including 11 dredges, 17 tugboats, 20 barges, and more than 400 rail cars, as well as skiffs, cranes and other machinery. At peak dredging during July and August, as many as 80 to 90 vessels are expected to be in the river each day. That’s a lot of water traffic congestion in a relatively narrow section of the Upper Hudson, but the river remains navigable by commercial and recreational boaters and open to water skiers, kayakers, swimmers, and anglers.

Boaters traveling in areas where dredging is being performed are being asked to avoid work areas, which are marked by buoys. New York State Canal Corporation regularly posts project information for boaters on their website. EPA and the New York State Department of Health representatives have been telling people recreational activities such as swimming and water skiing are acceptable during dredging, but individuals should try to avoid the immediate areas where dredging is being performed to minimize the potential for exposure. Also, people are being reminded to wash off after going in the water, not just because of PCBs, but because unfiltered river water is known to contain bacteria, viruses and other “bugs” that can make people sick. People are surprised to learn that they can still swim in the river with the project going on, but the main risk of exposure to PCBs at dangerous levels is through eating contaminated fish — and, for now, fish are strictly for catch and release in the Upper Hudson.

About the author: Kristen Skopeck is originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is an 11-year Air Force veteran and was stationed in California, Ohio, Texas, Portugal, and New York. After working for the USDA for three years, Kristen joined EPA in 2007 and moved to Glens Falls, NY to be a member of the Hudson River PCB dredging project team. She likes to spend her time reading, writing, watching movies, walking, and meeting new people.

About the author: Kristen Skopeck is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is an Air Force veteran who joined EPA in 2007 to be a member of the Hudson River PCB dredging project team. She likes to spend her time reading, writing, watching movies, walking, and meeting new people.

In 2009 dredging began in the Upper Hudson River to remove sediments with PCBs. Read more.

Last week, a team of archaeologists and divers evaluated the remains of a late-18th or early-19th Century boat long submerged in the eastern channel of Rogers Island. Enough of the boat was intact to see that it had a distinctive centerboard keel slot technology that was an important innovation in early American shipbuilding. Divers used a small hydraulic dredge (similar to a vacuum) to further expose the vessel, screened the dredged sediment, measured the vessel, and took photos and video of the work. Afterward, the vessel was exhumed in pieces and added to a collection of other large debris, like tree stumps, that will ultimately be disposed of at a permitted landfill. Unfortunately, the boat’s deterioration and its coating of PCB-contaminated sediment prevented it from being brought to the surface and restored.

The entire PCB-removal project has been done in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, which states federal agencies must take into account the effects of their actions on any district, site, building, structure or object listed in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. So far, archeologists have found 10 sunken vessels that are being evaluated in the first phase of the project.

So, how did this boat end up submerged by Rogers Island? Fort Edward’s historian, Paul McCarty, said there is no way to know if the boat was put there for a reason or if it was a wreck, but the odds are that the boat was sunk in an accident and left underwater as a derelict. He hopes the underwater investigation and subsequent report will give some indication of what timeframe the boat met its demise and, maybe, help us understand why it happened.

About the author: Kristen Skopeck is originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is an 11-year Air Force veteran and was stationed in California, Ohio, Texas, Portugal, and New York. After working for the USDA for three years, Kristen joined EPA in 2007 and moved to Glens Falls, NY to be a member of the Hudson River PCB dredging project team. She likes to spend her time reading, writing, watching movies, walking, and meeting new people.

In 2009 dredging began in the Upper Hudson River to remove sediments with PCBs. Read more.

Thousands of hours of planning and investigation culminated in the first dredge bucket being lowered into the Upper Hudson River on May 15, 2009. I was there to watch a diverse crowd, many with Cheshire Cat grins and some more dubious, take in the scene, as a bright blue dredge bucket slowly lowered into the water and pulled up a bucketful of PCB-laden muck. Also watching were reporters from many media outlets, and even a group of journalism students, all armed with cameras and itching for interviews. Everyone there was reminded of the 30-plus years of wrangling between EPA, General Electric, environmental groups, and citizens that led up to this historic day.

The 40-miles of the Upper Hudson between Fort Edward and Troy, New York contain thousands of pounds of a potentially cancer-causing chemical called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The entire dredging project targets the removal of about 248,600 pounds of PCBs that EPA scientists know are situated in the river in a way that is having a toxic impact on fish. They know because they have studied more than 50,000 sediment samples taken in a polka dot pattern across the 40 miles. Incidentally, they found some pockets of PCBs are buried deeply and shouldn’t be disturbed, but the places being targeted are relatively shallow (many between six inches and three feet) and have to come out.

As the Community Involvement Coordinator on the project, I am the affected peoples’ advocate. It is important to me that people understand how the project is being orchestrated and that EPA’s oversight will ensure it is done in a safe and efficient manner. One of the tools I’ll be using to do so is this blog. I’ll update it regularly, and I’ll invite other project members to join in the dialogue, so we can relate what is happening on the project in a timely, unfiltered way. If you have any specific questions please email me at skopeck.kristen@epa.gov.

About the author: Rob Lawrence joined EPA in 1990 and is Senior Policy Advisor on Energy Issues in the Dallas, TX regional office. As an economist, he works to insure that both supply and demand components are addressed as the Region develops its Clean Energy and Climate Change Strategy.

I want to relate an exciting initiative upon which EPA Region 6 has embarked. We are working with state and federal agencies, land owners, renewable energy financiers and developers to advocate the use of previously contaminated sites as potential locations for renewable energy production. Together with the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources and the New Mexico Environment departments, Region 6 hosted the conference - Brown to Green: Make the Connection to Renewable Energy.

What might be a previously contaminated site? It could be a Brownfields designated property, a former military installation, a closed municipal landfill or a previously worked mining site. Really, almost any industrial facility could be prepared for a renewable energy use.

What are the merits of these types of sites? In most cases, the properties are less expensive to acquire than a greenfield development. The basic infrastructure – power grid access, water availability and highway arteries are nearby. In some cases, the costs associated in developing a greenfield site, including adding transmission lines could run into the millions of dollars. From an economic standpoint, reuse of a property means that it will be returned to local and state tax rolls for future assessments. And by using a previously developed property, acres of undisturbed lands will remain in their virgin state.

What type of renewable energy is applicable to these sites? As with most real estate developments, the answer to that question is “Location, Location, Location!” EPA and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory have mapped the thousands of locations of closed facilities and cross-referenced them with solar and wind capabilities. In the near future, geothermal production capabilities will be added. To get an idea of the potential for properties in your state, and see the state financial incentives for renewable energy, check out: http://www.epa.gov/renewableenergyland/ for more information.

What has EPA done to facilitate this initiative? For the last 6 months, I have led a group working with the City of Houston to assess the regulatory, technical and economic considerations for the development of a 10 MWatt solar farm on a portion of the closed Holmes Road Landfill. With the abundance of sunshine in the Houston area year-round, it would be feasible to use about 100 acres of the 300 acres at the closed landfill for a solar farm. The City is examining its contract options and hopes to make a decision in early 2009 about using the site.

About the author: Brenda Reyes Tomassini joined EPA in 2002. She is a public affairs specialist in the San Juan, Puerto Rico office and also handles community relations for the Caribbean Environmental Protection Division.

Lea la versión en español a continuación de esta entrada en inglés.
Some links exit EPA or have Spanish content.

Just recently, my two eldest daughters and I participated in the Ocean Conservency’s yearly International Coastal Cleanup Day, an effort established by a woman in Texas in 1986. On our Caribbean shores, the Scuba Dogs organization has been coordinating this event for the last 7 years. Thousands participate cleaning up one of our most treasured resource: our beautiful coastline.

As a veteran at these events due to the nature of my job at EPA and my love for a clean environment, I joined my daughters’ team, all students from the environmental club at Colegio Marista. On our early morning drive to Vacía Talega beach on the town of Loíza, I saw dozens of groups ready for a few hours of hard work picking up the abandoned trash. Covering a ten mile stretch of coastal roads, brigades worked retrieving plastic, food wrappers and construction materials, to name a few.

Our group included around 200 students and parents, who worked in various crews from 8AM until 11AM. Those three hours made a difference and taught these young citizens some valuable lessons in environmental stewardship. Not only did they learn about protecting our marine habitats, but how clean beaches contribute towards Puerto Rico’s economy since our beautiful beaches attract tourists from all over the world. Mosquito bites aside, this was a great way to teach an environmental lesson outside the classroom!

I am happy to report that 135 beaches, 23 rivers, 9 lakes, 4 estuaries, and 6 coastal areas were cleaned in Puerto Rico by 11,500 volunteers who picked 235,683 pounds of trash. Did you participate in the International Day Coastal Cleanup? If not, I invite you to take part of this event. If you did, what was your most unusual find?

Día Internacional de Limpieza de Costas

Sobre la autor: Brenda Reyes Tomassini se unió a la EPA en el 2002. Labora como especialista de relaciones públicas en la oficina de EPA en San Juan, Puerto Rico donde también maneja asuntos comunitarios para la División de Protección Ambiental del Caribe.

Recientemente participé junto a mis dos hijas mayores del Día Internacional de Limpieza de Costas. Este día comenzó cuando una dama del estado de Texas coordinó un esfuerzo en 1986 para limpiar las playas de su estado. En Puerto Rico, la organización Scuba Dogs es el coordinador oficial del evento hace 7 años . Este año miles participaron limpiando nuestro más preciado tesoro: nuestras costas.

Aunque ya soy una veterana en estos eventos de limpieza de playas (no importa la época del año) por mi trabajo en la EPA, no desperdicio una oportunidad para unirme a estos esfuerzos y este año no fue la excepción. El club ambiental del Colegio Marista, a dónde asisten mi hijos, adoptó una costa en el área de Vacía Talega en el pueblo de Loíza. Durante nuestro recorrido, y desde temprano en la mañana, pude observar cómo decenas de brigadas, trabajaban recogiendo basura, plástico, materiales de construcción y empaques de comida, entre otras cosas, por un trecho de diez millas bajo el candente sol caribeño.

Nuestro grupo incluyó a cerca de 200 estudiantes y padres que trabajaron arduamente en grupos desde las 8AM y por espacio de 3 horas. Este breve periodo de tiempo sirvió para enseñar a estos jóvenes ciudadanos una lección que no se aprende en un salón de clases: la protección del medioambiente está en manos de cada uno de nosotros y las consecuencias de no hacerlo pueden afectar no solo los hábitats marinos, si no también nuestra economía, ya que nuestra isla depende grandemente del turismo. Aparte de las picadas de mosquito, disfrutamos todos de esta actividad, la cual terminó con un chapuzón en la playa para algunos de los participantes!

El resultado de este esfuerzo fue que 135 playas, 23 ríos, 9 lagos, 4 estuarios y 6 áreas costeras se limpiaron en Puerto Rico por 11,500 voluntarios que recogieron 235, 683 libras de basura. ¿Participó usted del Día Internacional de Limpieza de Costas? Si nunca lo ha hecho, le invito a que participe de este evento. Si participó, ¿cuál fue el artículo más extraño que encontró?

About the authors: Bob Dyer and Ella Barnes, Office of International Affairs, have managed work on the reduction of toxic and hazardous wastes in the Arctic under both the multilateral Arctic Contaminants Action Program (ACAP) and the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) Program for over 10 years. Bob Dyer chaired the ACAP Working Group under the Arctic Council from 2004 to 2008, and Ella Barnes is the U.S. Representative to the ACAP Working Group.

If you stood with me at the northernmost point of the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia, on the shores of the frigid Arctic Ocean, what would we see? A star-filled sky, the Aurora Borealis, whales, walruses, perhaps a lost polar bear… But there is something that the eye cannot see: high concentrations of contaminants, from radioactive materials to pesticides.

A Chukotka family has set up residence in an abandoned hazardous waste tank.

The Arctic is fragile, and is an early warning indicator of the state of the larger planet. Almost all Russian rivers flow to the north, where contaminants accumulate in seaweed, fish, birds, and mammals. Through the subsistence food chain these contaminants quickly find their way into the bodies of indigenous people where they stay for years. Native Americans in the Arctic, who neither produced nor used these chemicals, are at risk.

Since 2004, EPA’s Bob Dyer has chaired and I have represented the U.S. at the Arctic Contaminants Action Program (ACAP), which includes the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia. Working together with our partners, EPA is helping to greatly reduce environmental contamination in the Arctic.

ACAP, under EPA leadership, organized the effort which to date has resulted in inventory, analysis and safe storeage over 4,000 metric tons of obsolete and prohibited pesticides in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Russia. Prior to this project, the contaminants were released directly into those northward-flowing Russian rivers and transported to the Arctic.

Thanks to the pesticides management program we initiated, Russian regions are now contributing their funds and manpower in development of creative solutions to pesticides storage. For example, they have converted an abandoned missile silo in Altai Krai, Southern Siberia, into an effective storage facility for legacy pesticides.

A Pokrovka former missile hangar was dismantled under the US Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. In 2007 it became an interim storage site for obsolete and prohibited pesticides under the ACAP Project.

Bob and I are particularly proud that, during the recent EPA chairmanship of ACAP, the program has created and implements a model environmental justice empowerment program in Russia called the Indigenous Peoples Community Action Initiative. This sustainable and replicable project has already resulted in the removal and safe storage of over a metric ton of PCBs and persistent organic pollutant pesticides from remote indigenous villages in Alaska and northern Russia.

A community elder in Chukotka, Russian Far East, told us that he lived with drums containing spent oils, lubricants, and transformer liquids all his life and they are a part of his landscape. EPA is helping to change that–this summer, through the ACAP Program, over 2000 drums were removed from two Arctic indigenous villages in Chukotka on the Bering Sea across from Alaska.

Residents of Lorino and Lavrentia, Chukotka Autonomous District removing hazardous waste drums.

About the author: Mary Kemp is currently the Homeland Security Coordinator in the Dallas, TX regional office. Mary started at EPA in 1985 and has worked in the asbestos, Superfund, and air programs. She’s keeping us updated on how her office is responding to Hurricane Gustav.

Because of the limited damage from Hurricane Gustav, I have been doing less and less associated with the storm over the last couple of days. EPA has staff deployed to Louisiana to assist in public information, drinking water and wastewater assessments, and technical assistance. This work is on-going as well as reconnaissance work. So far, minimal support has been needed from EPA.

Gustav is fading . . . The next storms (Hanna, Ike, and Josephine) are coming. Hanna looks to hit the east coast sometime this weekend. We’re not sure where Ike will go. As long as we are needed, we will continue to help the states recover.

About the author: Mary Kemp is currently the Homeland Security Coordinator in the Dallas, TX regional office. Mary started at EPA in 1985 and has worked in the asbestos, Superfund, and air programs. She’s keeping us updated on how her office is responding to Hurricane Gustav.

Our first reconnaissance flights from yesterday showed no emergencies at facilities and limited damage. Our water experts will be assisting the state with assessments of drinking water and waste water infrastructure in the hurricane impacted area. They are also sharing and distributing information along the way. Our Public Information Officer is located at the Joint Field Office in Baton Rouge. He is coordinating information sharing and distribution of information too. We are continuing to work with the state. I’m on hold waiting to see if there will be an activation of the general Response Support Corps.

About the author: Tim Lyons is EPA’s Deputy Press Secretary.

From green ballparks and green toilet paper to Wally the Green Monster and Green Power Partnerships, green is the new rage these days and, quite unexpectedly, I’ve even caught this green wave and I hope you will too, if you haven’t already.

Green is everywhere. The question is where do you want to be? Do you want to be one of EPA’s world-class scientists or a high school science teacher? Do you want to be in the public or private sector? Regardless of where you want to be and what you want to do, we can all chip in and improve the environment.

Growing up in New Hampshire, a state which makes the environment one of its top priorities, and having worked on environmental issues in my previous job, I gradually learned what steps people could take to preserve the environment. Those experiences translated into a growing interest in this whole “green” rage and, now, here I am at EPA.

In the spirit of Earth Week (April 20-26) and National Volunteer Week (April 27-May 3), it is important to understand that we can all “catch the green wave” – and it doesn’t take much of an effort. My office, EPA’s Office of Public Affairs, tackled a project on Friday, April 25, at the Boathouse at Fletcher’s Cove along the C&O Canal in Georgetown. In coordination with the C&O Canal Trust, we removed tons of trash and debris (i.e. massive logs) to help clean up the park area. We returned home with scrapes and pulled back muscles, but we accomplished a lot and, hopefully, we made a difference.

If we all do our part, we can change the world and do something good for the environment. Whether it involves moving heavy debris or picking up trash like we did, I encourage everyone to grab a board and hop on the green wave. There are countless environmental volunteers out there who are riding this wave and making a difference in our lives, so we should take a moment to thank them and think about becoming volunteers ourselves.

About the author: Dan Heister is an on-scene coordinator with Superfund in Region 10 for 8 years. Dan’s responses have ranged from fifty gallon oil spills on a small creek to spending 7 weeks in a FEMA trailer helping with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

I’m an on-scene coordinator (OSC) in Region 10 (AK, ID, OR and WA) and it is my considered opinion that I have the best job in the Agency. I should know, in 21 years of service with EPA I’ve worked as a program analyst at HQ, been a state grants project officer, a pesticide, PCB, Confined Animal Feed Operation (CAFO) and SPCC inspector. I’ve done details with the Oregon Department of Ag and the City of Portland’s Brownfields program, but for the past eight years I’ve done emergency response and time critical removal actions and consider myself very fortunate.

Some of the upsides of the job are that I get to see a lot of scenery around the region and the country, albeit on very short notice and the scenery smells like diesel or whatever happened to have been spilled. I rarely wear a tie and can usually wear blue jeans. Some downsides are long days, stressful circumstances, bad coffee, greasy food, and cold port-a-potties. The toughest part is being away from my family for extended periods. Fortunately my wife and daughter know how much satisfaction I get from my work and they accommodate within reason.

As an OSC I get to meet lots of people. In most cases they have a preconceived notion of what an EPA bureaucrat is and their initial expectations are set accordingly. Most of my reward comes at the end of an emergency response or removal action when some one tells me, “you’re not what I expected”, or “thanks for your: help, caring, honesty, humor, listening”. This happens exactly 7.847% of the time, but it’s like playing golf: one good shot out of fifty puts the spring back in your step. Alternately, I have been sworn at, threatened and even had a bullet shot through the federal plate on a government car, but those things happen very infrequently. People for the most part usually extend a modicum of trust with a desire to give more if warranted.

The OSC position is an obscure one to many within and outside the EPA. I hope over time I can make the OSC’s role in the Agency’s larger mission a bit clearer. Here’s a description of what an on-scene coordinator does.