Pollution leaching from Tongass road
Published Thursday, June 26, 2008
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE -- Pollutants from a new road in the Tongass National Forest are leaching into streams that drain into a popular lake, harming fish and other aquatic life, federal officials said Wednesday.
Recent tests found that fish had abandoned the lower reaches of six unnamed streams that empty into two other streams that are important local sources of coho and sockeye salmon, said Jason Anderson, a Tongass National Forest's district ranger.
The tests also found dead aquatic bugs.
State and federal agencies said the pollutants come from naturally contaminated shale that was used last year to build a road and stream culverts on Prince of Wales Island.
Because the pollution has already caused damage, "this is way beyond a normal permit violation," said Jennifer Roberts, the federal facilities program manager in the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation's contaminated sites program.
The DEC and other agencies have begun an investigation to figure out how to eliminate the source of the pollution.
Federal contractors had quarried the "bad rock" from a right-of-way along the road route and used it to build culverts over the streams.
Federal officials said they plan to pave the Coffman Cove Road this year, but not the contaminated three-and-half-mile segment, which may need to be excavated.
The Forest Service said it will also host public meetings about the pollution.
The first sign of trouble showed up last fall, when work crews noticed that temporary metal culverts built into the streams had become severely corroded, Anderson said.
Additional testing this spring showed that the water contained too much acid and an overabundance of heavy metals including copper and iron. The acid causes copper and iron from the rock to dissolve into the water.
People in Coffman Cove are concerned about the status of the road project and don't have a sense of how bad the environmental problem is, said Elaine Price, a project manager for the city.
"It's a freak thing," she said.
Community Discussion
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Let it go...It will self correct by the time "Action" will be taken...as well as way to much money and attention to such a small problem (Learn from it...and move on).
The problem is that all the learning already took place a very long time ago, it's called acid-base accounting, very common in mining when dealing with tailings. To indiscriminately dump rock in a stream (build culverts) with out knowing what your doing isn't 'freak' it's ignorant.
You'd think the feds would know better. I only assume that since they sure seem to enjoy beating the heck out of miners over the very same issue.
It's just a guess, but the 'naturally contaminted shale' is probably more sulfide than shale, like 30 to 50%. It'll take an extremely long time before all that turns to acid. Best to dig it up and put it back. Will it be expensive? Yes it will.
Thanks, NFNP.
N_F_N_P
If it's arsenopyrite, they have some real issues.
Why don't they just leave the road as is. In a hundred years no one will know the difference. Maybe those "aquatic bugs" were going to die anyway.
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