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A grassroots effort has joined together environmental and business interests to address a watershed action plan in what is one of the largest environmental cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.
By Carol Brzozowski
The Elizabeth River in southeastern Virginia was a literal dumping ground for industrial waste from industries that lined its shores to serve commerce years before the Clean Water Act went into effect.
One of the bends in the river—Money Point—was so named for the wealth it created for shipping terminals, factories, and wood treatment plants, according to locals. Others believe Blackbeard buried treasure along the shores.
But the contaminated sediments in the Elizabeth River are anything but treasure. And a grassroots effort has joined together environmental and business interests to address a watershed action plan in what is one of the largest environmental cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.
“The Money Point project is not just cleaning up the contaminated sediments and walking away from the project—which a lot of times is what happens when people are only interested in cleaning up a contaminated site and that’s it,” says Joe Rieger, the director of watershed restoration for the Elizabeth River Project.
The Elizabeth River Project is a nonprofit grassroots effort spearheading the Elizabeth River cleanup. Begun around a kitchen table in 1991, Marjorie Mayfield Jackson, who serves as executive director, took the organization from the original four interested parties to a current staff of eight and a dues-paying membership of more than 2,000.
The grassroots effort has expanded to include industries; citizens; and local, state, and municipal government agencies, all of which are undertaking individual efforts toward the main goal of remediating the river and its shorelines.
“Since the day Marjorie founded this organization, our main mission was to work with the state and federal government along with the industries, because we knew that we couldn’t be effective on this river if we had an attitude of pointing fingers,” says Rieger.
While the efforts embrace the Elizabeth River watershed as a whole, special attention is being given to critical concerns at Money Point. The overall philosophy of action looks not only to remediate the consequences of the past, but also to set in place actions that will ensure no recontamination in the future.
To that end, the Money Point Revitalization Task Force, convened by the Elizabeth River Project and facilitated by the University of Virginia’s Institute for Environmental Negotiation, met periodically between January 2005 and August 2006.
“The document is a 10-year plan put together with diverse stakeholder input that included all of the Money Point landowners, the state government, and the citizens, and we got their input as to the most comprehensive plan we could come up with to restore Money Point,” says Rieger. “What we didn’t want to do is spend $5 million, walk away from the project, and then find out that the river got recontaminated from the uplands. This plan addresses the recontamination issues.”
The Elizabeth River Project is an effort former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman calls “the model” for voluntary partnerships between government, businesses, and citizens to achieve real environmental results.
The main waste pollutant over the years has been creosote, used as a wood preservative. Lumber for outdoor use—such as railroad ties, posts, and marine pilings—was soaked in creosote to extend the life of the wood that’s exposed to weather elements.
The Elizabeth River has played an important role in the history of the region. It is part of the Elizabeth River watershed, which includes the towns of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach. The watershed is further divided into smaller branches, with the main stem, the eastern branch, the western branch, the southern branch, and the Lafayette River.
The Elizabeth River watershed is 200 square miles and is one of the oldest port facilities, has one of the largest naval fleets on the Eastern Seaboard, and is the third-largest cargo importer into the East Coast. Consequently, it is a “very protected” harbor area because the harbor has protection from large storms, which is why it became a port and is one of the nation’s oldest ports, notes Rieger. “It’s become a key area for the maritime industry,” he says. “The soft bottoms allowed for dredging to occur so they could get larger ships into the port without having to dig through stone or other materials, like in New York Harbor where they have to blast.”
Over time, as material was dredged to create port facilities, the Elizabeth River became deeper and narrower. Initially, it was a very shallow estuary with a maximum depth of about 20 feet, but the average depth was about 5 to 7 feet.
Rieger points out the Elizabeth River is not a “flow through” river as are others. The southern portion of the river is part of the Intracoastal Waterway and a canal links it to the Dismal Swamp, which is its only constant source of fresh water other than stormwater runoff during rain events.
“It doesn’t have a current like you’d normally picture in your mind when you think of a river flowing past,” says Rieger. “It’s an inter-tidal estuary, so the far reaches of this river that are most inland have very low flushing range. That affects the river’s dynamics. Like a bathtub effect, it just sloshes back and forth on the tidal ranges.”
Money Point had been one of the focus areas for creosoting timber. “They would cut the trees in the south and bring them up to Norfolk either by railroad or ship and would treat the material in Norfolk, then ship it usually to northern areas such as New York and Boston and other large cities,” says Rieger.
The trees were not treated in the south, because it would have made them heavier to ship to the north. The Money Point area became a “middle ground” for treating the pine and sending it along its way to become structures for telephone poles or piers, for example, he adds.
Four large creosoting facilities were located within a 2-mile area in the southern branch of the Elizabeth River. Their business ran strong from about 1850 through the late 1970s.
From the 1880s to 1968, wastewater was discharged directly into the Elizabeth River. In 1963, a fire at the Eppinger and Russell site resulted in the destruction of 130,000 gallons of creosote, although current data show none of it made its way into the river.
Some of the highest levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) in the world were found offshore of Eppinger and Russell, a former wood treatment plant, as well as the site of the former Republic Creosoting. The PAH suite of compounds is typically found in creosote and creosote materials that go on types of timbers.
Rieger notes the overall contamination is the result from the day-to-day activities that had occurred over 130 years. Some 35 acres are contaminated by PAH. “It’s interesting, because other areas in the Elizabeth that had creosoting facilities have mass contaminant levels that are very striking, and here it looks like it’s contained with about the first 5 or 6 feet—it’s not what you would expect from a spill scenario,” says Rieger.
“There’s a spottiness of contaminants out there in the river, which has led us to believe—based on looking at some historical structures—the result is day-to-day activities when there was no Clean Water Act for controlling substances like creosote.”
The Money Point Revitalization Task Force has developed five main goals to be implemented in 10 years:
1: Clean up the river bottom at Money Point.
“When we started out, we identified that cleaning up the contamination in the bottom of the Elizabeth River was the first action that needed to be taken before anything else,” says Rieger. “There was this historical contamination sitting on the bottom of the river, which was re-distributing throughout the river basin.”
Contaminated sediments are to be cleaned up at the former Eppinger and Russell facility by 2009 and those offshore of the former Republic Cresoting site by 2016. The sediments are to be cleaned to 45 parts per million of PAH or less. Cleaning will be done by dredging the contaminated sediments and replacing them with clean sand, where oyster reefs and wetlands will be added.
Sediment cleanup will involve both offshore and onshore remediation, says Dave Koubsky, environmental project manager for the Elizabeth River Project. Offshore remediation will involve dredging, with sediment brought into the upland area where it would be dewatered and treated in an economical and practical manner yet to be determined by design engineers.”Upland areas are being remediated through a combination of pumping where there are groundwater impacts that have migrated through the water table and accumulated in the base of the aquifer,” Koubsky says.
One of the major upland cleanup efforts on Money Point is being spearheaded by the Hess Corp., which now owns most of the former Eppinger and Russell site. The company entered the voluntary remediation program in 2002 and has conducted soil and groundwater investigations at the site, finding PAH contaminations in a small area of soil and groundwater.
“Hess’s contractor is currently pumping out raw product from the groundwater to prevent continual contamination,” says Koubsky. To date, some 30,000 gallons have been pumped and recovered. The material is being moved offsite for incineration for its BTU value as energy recapture.
2. Prevent upland pollution from entering the river at Money Point, improving and maintaining water quality.
“Hess is very aggressive in their actions,” says Koubsky. “There’s also going to be an installation of a groundwater barrier between the contaminated zones upland and the shoreline that will protect the remediated area offsite from continued groundwater impact.”
Adds Rieger, “Hess has been an outstanding partner on this project. The company’s actions will allow sediment remediation to move forward.”
Additionally, Hess has planted more than 1,200 native tress such as poplars for phytoremediation (plants that take up pollutants through their roots) of creosote on its site. The action also serves to control water-level elevation upland.
“In addition to that, there will be some capping of the area to protect any groundwater as it rains, as water flushes through the contaminated soil and it might reach into the groundwater,” says Koubsky, adding that various technologies are being considered.
3: Enhance the quality of life at Money Point, promoting co-existence of industrial, community, and ecological health.
Plans call for the establishment of a “Learning Barge,” a floating 120-foot classroom to bring the public and students to view restoration efforts at they occur on the river. Wind and solar energy will be used to teach alternatives to pollution-causing forms of energy. The barge also will include a display on sediment contamination and a living wetlands garden with native plants to filter graywater.
4: Establish environmental stewardship among industries through the “River Stars” program whereby industries along the Elizabeth River’s shores voluntarily engage in pollution prevention and habitat enhancement at their facilities.
“We have eight ‘River Stars,’ or industries we work with directly at Money Point, and then we’ll probably be recruiting two to three more in the next couple of years,” Rieger says. “We have the major landowners on board and involved in the project.
“The River Stars program features CEOs and their workers from large corporations planting wetlands with the Elizabeth River Project, so the whole idea is to gain a stewardship appreciation for people who work on the river; they take on that responsibility and interest and participate in it. It’s been a great success here on the Elizabeth River using this type of approach.”
Companies along the shoreline are adding native trees, shrubs, and wetland to filter runoff and restore habitat, as well as assessing and improving stormwater controls to prevent recontamination offshore and add new pollution prevention measures.
Among the efforts:
- Exxon (Kinder Morgan) is working with the Elizabeth River Project on a tidal wetlands project, placing 16 acres into a long-term conservation easement of which 4 of those acres have been carved out for tidal wetland and upland buffer restoration. Another Kinder Morgan project involved habitat enhancement, which is being used by osprey.
- Sims/Hugo Neu, one of the largest scrap recycling companies in the United States, installed a vegetative buffer along its shoreline.
- CITCO Petroleum completed a wildflower meadow and native plant planting at its facility and is doing a stormwater project with the Elizabeth River Project within the next year. The company also placed 2 acres of property into a long-term conservation agreement with the Elizabeth River Project. CITGO also has installed a new oil/water separator to reduce runoff and replaced wiper seals on two tanks with mechanical shoe and secondary wiper seals, reducing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by 1,749 pounds in one tank and 1,388 pounds in another.
5: Restore and conserve wetlands, vegetated buffers, shellfish beds, and urban forest, creating an integrated network of habitat for wildlife in the Money Point Plan.
This area of the Money Point Revitalization plan is currently under way with a 4-acre tidal wetland restoration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Restoration Center, notes Rieger. The project will restore both tidal wetlands and upland buffer back to an industrialized waterfront.
These five goals for Money Point remediation are based on a broader regional watershed action plan that encompasses a wide-scale effort of smaller projects.
These projects include the following:
- Reduce toxins and nutrients in stormwater runoff.
- Do ongoing monitoring to guide effective restoration and conservation.
- Restore contaminated uplands, particularly those where “brownfields”—abandoned industrial sites—could further contaminate the area.
- Ensure port expansions are ecologically and economically responsible.
- Engage in public education on the Elizabeth River’s key challenges.
- Reduce litter (the Downtown Norfolk Council of 1,200 merchants employed private street sweepers who kept 77,000 pounds of debris out of storm drains and the Elizabeth River).
- Support efforts to reduce levels of TBT (tributyltin) in marine paint. The pesticide is used in antifouling paints to protect boat hulls from barnacles and algae; its compounds are toxic to aquatic life.
- Promote mass transit and alternate transportation in recognition that automotive usage is a major contributor of nonpoint pollution to the river.
- Remove abandoned vessels and pilings.
- Support efforts to implement a “load allocation approach” that defines maximum total pollutant levels tolerable by the Elizabeth River ecosystem, and allocating portions among industries. One such action adapts a hydrodynamic model developed for the Elizabeth River by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
- Improve sewage: The goal for this year is to support municipalities in their efforts to improve insufficient sanitary collection systems, as well as establish effective sewage disposal for recreational boaters. Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) and other agencies are making efforts to reduce untreated sewage discharged from boats. HRSD has implemented a free pump-out service for Hampton Roads boaters using grant funds.
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The Elizabeth River Project formed a sister nonprofit organization with its own board called the Living River Restoration Trust. It oversees an in-lieu fee fund, so if there is an impact to river sediments either from dredging or filling, an applicant would have the option to pay into the trust fund to clean up sediments elsewhere on the Elizabeth River. Efforts will be focused at Money Point.
The initial amount of money placed in the trust—$5 million—came from a new port facility that was going to be dredging about 10 million cubic yards in the main stem of the Elizabeth River. The Elizabeth River Project does project management while the trust does direct contracting with consultants for design and construction.
A feasibility study and conceptual design has been completed and includes three phases. Phase I focused on site investigation, including field sampling. Phase II involves the evaluation of remedial options, including sediment disposal issues and pre- and post-monitoring and maintenance. The final phase considers the conceptual remedial design, with a tentative completion date of 2010.
Koubsky says a request for proposal (RFP) is being prepared for corrective action design engineering and construction to remediate impacted sediment at Money Point. The RFP was scheduled for release in April 2007 with contractor selection in August 2007. Sediment dewatering and stormwater components will be part of the remedial action program.
One of the essential components of sustaining efforts made in the Elizabeth River Project is stormwater treatment.
The Money Point stormwater system is dated and has not been upgraded, with very few water-quality improvements put in place to scrub the stormwater before it hits the river, notes Rieger.
The Elizabeth River Project has worked with the City of Chesapeake as the city moves through assessing the problem and addressing the solution, Rieger says, noting that improved stormwater treatment will help flooding issues at Money Point. “We don’t want a direct shot at the river without treatment, so we’re working on securing funding to add a water-quality improvement project to their stormwater project,” he says. “They haven’t moved into construction or detailed design yet, but we are working on a number of grants and other funding opportunities to fund a local BMP or stormwater swales to be integrated into that stormwater project.”
As the process unfolds, despair has been replaced by hope. In the early 1990s, the Elizabeth River—a commercial and recreational fishing destination—was considered dead, with many bottom-dwelling fish suffering from cancer, deformities, lesions, and cataracts. Oyster fishing has been shut down, although commercial crabbing continues, in addition to a great deal of recreational fishing. But the river is not as dead as some would believe, notes Rieger.
“We have quite the diversity,” Rieger says. “In a lot of these areas in which we are doing restoration, we can catch up to 21 types of finfish at these restored sites. The river itself is still alive and there is still a tremendous amount of diversity with finfish and crabs using it.”
The goal throughout the process has been “not to look at just one of the problems of the contamination and re-contamination issue,” says Rieger, “but to look at the Money Point project on a landscape scale to see where we can do habitat improvement, and stormwater improvement, where we can clean up sediment and overall enhance the area of Money Point.”
Carol Brzozowski is a journalist in Coral Springs, FL.
OW - May/June 2007 |
