By the end of September, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway is expected to begin removing contaminants from the Whitefish River as part of an order handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Meanwhile, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality will continue to review a remedial investigation report to decide when BNSF should begin cleanup at its fueling facility, located just off the river. The cleanup efforts will take years.
David Romero, an on-scene coordinator with EPA’s Region 8 office, said details of the river cleanup are still unknown since BNSF hadn’t turned in its work plan as of last week. Gus Melonas, BNSF spokesman, said the company is developing the plan and will turn it in by the Sept. 15 deadline. Then cleanup must begin no later than Sept. 25.
“The areas of impact are pretty big,” Romero said. “It’s going to take some time to get it done. It’s not a project that’s going to get done in one year or even two years.”
In August of 2007, the EPA was notified that an oily sheen was reportedly seen on the river. The river is popular for recreation and flows through the town of Whitefish, originating at Whitefish Lake and eventually dumping into the Flathead River. Led by Romero, the EPA launched two investigations – one in October of 2007 and one last summer. Samples were taken on both occasions.
The investigations concluded that diesel fuel and “bunker C fuel” were in the water. Romero began speaking with officials from the DEQ and “found consistencies in the information we had with the information they had.” Romero said the fuel could have came from BNSF’s storage tanks, or it could have been directly placed into the river as far back as the 1940s.
While Romero emphasized that any conversation of the exact sources of the fuel is speculation, he said his agency has confirmed that BNSF is the general source. The order for BNSF to begin removing the contaminants falls under the jurisdiction of the Oil Pollution Act.
“They are the responsible party for this at this point; I haven’t seen anybody else who could contribute oil like this,” Romero said.
As of now, BNSF is requested to clean up a roughly two-mile stretch of the river, from the company’s upstream boundary down to J.P. Road. But EPA investigations found contaminants downstream from that stretch and Romero said his agency expects BNSF to research the matter further. If the company doesn’t, the EPA could hand down another order for work beyond the two-mile stretch.
“We could ask them to keep going,” Romero said. “That’s a possibility.”
Romero issued four “deliverables” that BNSF must fulfill. The first is to remove contaminants beginning at the company’s upstream boundary to the Second Street Bridge. The second is to complete cleanup downstream of the bridge to J.P. Road.
Third, BNSF must “verify the functionality of the trench recovery system.” In 1973, an interceptor trench was installed to pick up any fuel coming from the facility and prevent it from entering the river. In the final deliverable, the railroad company has to identify all possible sources of contamination at the facility.
If these deliverables are not met, the EPA could impose fines or take the project over and then give the bill to BNSF when it’s finished. Work will be done in the fall and early spring because of the low water flows, Romero said.
Though BNSF’s work plan hasn’t yet been handed in, Romero offered possible scenarios for the cleanup process. Romero said it’s common to set up a coffer dam, or containment area. A filtration system dewaters the contained area and then workers go in with a mini excavator, or possibly a vacuum or other machine, and remove the contaminated sediments.
Then BNSF will have to make sure the environment is restored, meaning banks must be stabilized and other disrupted areas be returned to their natural state as much as possible. This requires cooperation with a variety of agencies, including the city of Whitefish and the state’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Whitefish City Manager Chuck Stearns said the city may have to close off a trail. Officials will also make sure that the cleanup follows the city’s erosion control standards and the critical areas ordinance.
“There’s a balancing thing – a lot of coordination from the different agencies,” Romero said.
Matthew Kent, site manager for the DEQ, said his agency will try to time its own actions with the river cleanup, to avoid a situation in which BNSF completes its river cleanup with EPA and then have to go right back to the river under the order of the DEQ. Kent’s agency is in the process of reviewing a remedial investigation report from the railroad company.
After the remedial investigation is reviewed, a feasibility study would be conducted in preparation for a large-scale cleanup of the actual facility, which is surrounded by toxic plumes and contaminated soil.
“We don’t have any set dates for our review on that right now,” Kent said.
Thus far, cleanup work at the facility has consisted largely of “interim actions,” Kent said, including efforts to remove diesel product from the groundwater through interceptor trenches and recovery wells. Kent said there will be more contamination testing by the end of this year, which will be overseen by his agency. If the EPA’s timeline moves too fast, though, Kent said the DEQ might not be able to keep up.
“We won’t exclude the possibility that BNSF would have to go back into the river,” Kent said.