The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently turned back a valuable piece of waterfront property to the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. The turnover, which took place Jan. 7, signaled a milestone in the decades-old clean-up of the New Bedford Harbor Superfund site.
The 5-acre property, located along the harbor, was formerly used as a sediment dewatering facility (Area D). When in operation, the facility dewatered hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of contaminated dredged material before sending it off-site for safe disposal at licensed facilities. The New England District completed dredging to remove PCB-contaminated sediments from the bottom of the harbor in early 2020, marking the conclusion the sub-tidal remediation that makes up much of the overall project.
“Today is a historic day, and a proud day, for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” said Col. John Atilano II, New England District Commander. “We have partnered with EPA on the clean-up of this harbor since the late 1980s and we are now closer than ever to the finish line.”
Contaminated since 1940 because of decades of PCB-contaminated waste being dumped into the harbor by local manufacturers, New Bedford Harbor is one of the largest and most complex cleanups the New England District has ever undertaken.
Marie Esten, New England District’s project manager, outlined the challenges of cleaning up such a large area.
“The site itself is 18,000 acres and is more than six miles long, with several areas so shallow we could not bring a dredge in,” she said. “It’s also spanned by low bridges that made it difficult to get equipment in and out. Additionally, the project is on a tidal estuary where water flowing both ways makes recontamination during work a constant concern.”
According to Col. Atilano, when the New England District first began this project, the technology to remediate the harbor’s contaminants properly and efficiently did not exist.
“Over the past two decades, this building housed equipment and processes that emerged from the evolving state-of-the-art and enabled us to get to where we are today,” said Col. Atilano.
In the last decade alone, approximately 600,000 cubic yards of material passed through the dewatering facility, equal to about 50,000 dump trucks.
“Today we are turning this valuable piece of real estate back to the people of New Bedford,” said Col. Atilano. “The sediment dewatering process building was a necessary component and in some ways a symbol of our subtidal cleanup work. Now that the subtidal environment has been remediated, we are very happy to no longer have need of it.”
“We will continue to work diligently on the next phases of the project,” said Col. Atilano. “This spring, we look forward to cleaning up several wetland areas in New Bedford, Fairhaven and Acushnet.”
Intertidal/wetland remediation and restoration continues along the harbor shoreline, four of the eight remaining zones will be completed in 2021.
Col. Atilano credited the strong partnership with EPA and the city of New Bedford for the progress on the project.
“Strong partnerships like that are critical to almost every project the New England District undertakes,” he said. “I want to thank Mayor Mitchell, Mr. Deziel and my New Bedford Superfund team for the hard work and dedication they put into getting this project to where we are now.”
The New England District Commander also thanked the residents of New Bedford, Fairhaven and Acushnet for their continued resilience, assistance and interest in the harbor clean-up process.
“I cannot guarantee you an end date to this phase or the project overall,” he said. “But I can guarantee you that the New England District will continue to work hard with the EPA and local officials to ensure the efforts are a success.”
| Date Taken: | 01.07.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 12.22.2021 11:14 |
| Story ID: | 411761 |
| Location: | CONCORD, MA, US |
| Web Views: | 25 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, New England District, EPA mark project milestone with land turnover, by AnnMarie Harvie, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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