Port Heiden Dump Site; Alaska Peninsula, Bering Sea side

Alaska Peninsula, Bering Sea side | 2007-Nov-21

Initial Notification: Coastal erosion at Port Heiden, on the Alaska Peninsula, has encroached on an old military dump site causing some sheening in the adjacent Bering Sea. The sheening was first observed on October 11, 2007, and is currently only sheening minimally. Nevertheless, Sector Anchorage has established an IC here in Anchorage to deal with the pollution. Current plans are to get the PST, along with state and contract folks, to conduct an evaluation and appraisal of the situation probably beginning around the first of next week. The sheening site is adjacent to a FUDS site in which the Army Corp of Engineers removed 2000 old drums containing only 100+ gallons of mixed petroleum fluids. In addition to old military drums, the dump site has been used by locals for years and contains derelict fishing gear, batteries, old vehicles, some medical waste and on and on. As a result, this response is being funded by CERCLA. NOAA has asked the NWS to provide a weeks' worth of Spot forecasts beginning November 23 and is currently providing tidal data for the incident. The Coast Guard assessed the situation, Nov. 28, when a six-man team consisting of Coast Guard, state of Alaska, and contractor reps flew to Port Heiden. Their first impression was how much had changed at the dump site from the photos taken only one month previous. No sheens or evidence of on-going releases was observed. Numerous old fuel drums were in the intertidal zone, all seriously rusted and open to the environment. In one and one-half months time, the shoreline embankment had eroded back from 10 to 40 feet. As a result, both the FOSC and the SOSC agreed to close the case. They asked the locals to continue monitoring the beach/dump site, and to remove any old batteries or minor amounts of oily fluids in drums that might appear. Case Closed.