A multimillion dollar environmental cleanup project in eastern Independence that’s been decades in the making was met with no public comments Tuesday night.
About a dozen local, state and federal government officials met at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant at Missouri 7 and 78 and listened to a proposed plan for the plant’s Area 10 sand pile cleanup. Overall, the cleanup efforts are complete, though about 765 tons of sand material still needs sorted for potential safety hazards.
Dave Wacker, project manager with the San Antonio-based Cabrera Services Inc., presented the findings on the current cleanup project that dates back to 2004. Cabrera Services Inc. was contracted for environmental remediation services in Area 10, with the U.S. Army and Environmental Protection Agency providing oversight.
Throughout five years, the cost for the cleanup totaled $14.7 million. The U.S. Army paid the bill for potentially harmful mistakes made in the 1960s and 1970s, prior to government-mandated regulatory practices.
The removal actions have resulted in residual lead concentrations acceptable for industrial land use and residual depleted uranium concentrations acceptable for unrestricted land use, Wacker said. No current or future risks exist to human health or the environment within the industrial exposure, he said.
“The sand pile material has been removed and no longer poses a potential source of contamination to groundwater,” Wacker said.
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, one of Eastern Jackson County’s largest employers, is the largest small-arms manufacturing plant in the world.
On 6 acres in the plant’s east-central portion, known as Area 10, the plant developed and test-fired munitions that contained licensed radioactive source material in the 1960s and 1970s. Waste from these rounds were collected at Area 10, and investigations have taken place since 1990 in cleanup efforts. Unlike past practices, depleted uranium is no longer used in ammunition fired at Lake City, which totals almost 4,000 acres.
The U.S. Army and Allied Technology Group (then contracted for removal services) completed a partial source removal in 1998 and 1999 when 30,000 cubic feet of the most highly contaminated waste was removed. It was then, Wacker said, that the waste indicated hazardous lead and depleted uranium contamination, though the initial objective was to solely address licensed radioactive material.
“At the time, they weren’t really prepared to deal with hazardous waste that was not radiological, and they found out that there was also hazardous quantities of lead on the site,” Wacker said. “So, they decided to stop what they were doing, kind of revamp and move ahead, dealing with both the lead and the radiological uranium.”
The removal, which addressed total lead and depleted uranium in sand and underlying soil, took place between April 2008 and February 2009. Radiological samples of sand pile material were performed in 1-foot depth intervals, which is an industry-wide standard, Wacker said.
During the waste disposal, unexploded ordnance and munitions constituents were identified as potential safety hazards, Wacker said.
A UXO is a round, such as a 20mm shell, that had not exploded and still had its charge intact, Wacker said. An MC, he said, would include portions of that round that were broken apart and still contained “energetic materials.”
“Even if the projectile still didn’t have all of the explosive material inside the round, it could be broken open with explosive material coming out of the ground that’s just sitting there in the pile,” he said. “Those are potential safety hazards that have to be addressed when we’re doing the work that we’re doing.”
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A multimillion dollar environmental cleanup project in eastern Independence that’s been decades in the making was met with no public comments Tuesday night.
About a dozen local, state and federal government officials met at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant at Missouri 7 and 78 and listened to a proposed plan for the plant’s Area 10 sand pile cleanup. Overall, the cleanup efforts are complete, though about 765 tons of sand material still needs sorted for potential safety hazards.
Dave Wacker, project manager with the San Antonio-based Cabrera Services Inc., presented the findings on the current cleanup project that dates back to 2004. Cabrera Services Inc. was contracted for environmental remediation services in Area 10, with the U.S. Army and Environmental Protection Agency providing oversight.
Throughout five years, the cost for the cleanup totaled $14.7 million. The U.S. Army paid the bill for potentially harmful mistakes made in the 1960s and 1970s, prior to government-mandated regulatory practices.
The removal actions have resulted in residual lead concentrations acceptable for industrial land use and residual depleted uranium concentrations acceptable for unrestricted land use, Wacker said. No current or future risks exist to human health or the environment within the industrial exposure, he said.
“The sand pile material has been removed and no longer poses a potential source of contamination to groundwater,” Wacker said.
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, one of Eastern Jackson County’s largest employers, is the largest small-arms manufacturing plant in the world.
On 6 acres in the plant’s east-central portion, known as Area 10, the plant developed and test-fired munitions that contained licensed radioactive source material in the 1960s and 1970s. Waste from these rounds were collected at Area 10, and investigations have taken place since 1990 in cleanup efforts. Unlike past practices, depleted uranium is no longer used in ammunition fired at Lake City, which totals almost 4,000 acres.
The U.S. Army and Allied Technology Group (then contracted for removal services) completed a partial source removal in 1998 and 1999 when 30,000 cubic feet of the most highly contaminated waste was removed. It was then, Wacker said, that the waste indicated hazardous lead and depleted uranium contamination, though the initial objective was to solely address licensed radioactive material.
“At the time, they weren’t really prepared to deal with hazardous waste that was not radiological, and they found out that there was also hazardous quantities of lead on the site,” Wacker said. “So, they decided to stop what they were doing, kind of revamp and move ahead, dealing with both the lead and the radiological uranium.”
The removal, which addressed total lead and depleted uranium in sand and underlying soil, took place between April 2008 and February 2009. Radiological samples of sand pile material were performed in 1-foot depth intervals, which is an industry-wide standard, Wacker said.
During the waste disposal, unexploded ordnance and munitions constituents were identified as potential safety hazards, Wacker said.
A UXO is a round, such as a 20mm shell, that had not exploded and still had its charge intact, Wacker said. An MC, he said, would include portions of that round that were broken apart and still contained “energetic materials.”
“Even if the projectile still didn’t have all of the explosive material inside the round, it could be broken open with explosive material coming out of the ground that’s just sitting there in the pile,” he said. “Those are potential safety hazards that have to be addressed when we’re doing the work that we’re doing.”
