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BP, ARCO, Alyeska pitch in to clean up abandoned North Slope airstrip Three-year Sagwon cleanup ends with late-winter haul out Randy Brutsche PNA Technical Editor
After decades of use and abuse by early oil exploration crews and recent abandonment by the oil and gas industry, the Sagwon Airstrip is finally being cleaned up. Located approximately 65 miles south of Prudhoe Bay at the base of the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, the site occupies some 2,560 acres.
While the need for site cleanup at Sagwon was obvious by the mid-1980s, only sporadic action was taken until last year. In the late 1980s the military detonated old geophysical explosives left on the site and in 1996 drilling muds were removed.
In 1993, the state approached industry about a cleanup of the area, and an agreement was signed in 1998. Work begun in 1998 continues this year, and final haul out of solid waste is expected next spring.
No road access The Sagwon Airstrip is not accessible by road. It lies about two miles east of the James Dalton Highway, one-half mile west of the trans-Alaska pipeline and about six miles south of Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.’s Pump Station 2. A portion of the flood plain of the Sagavanirktok River lies between the site and the pipeline access road.
Contamination at the site consists mainly of solid and hazardous waste that poses a physical risk of injury to both people and wildlife and is an eyesore to the oil and gas industry which is working to improve the image of its work practices.
The Sagwon Airstrip is also within 15 miles of a southwest finger of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge boundary. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Region 10 visited the site in 1987 and has declined to designate it as a Superfund site.
More than 30 years of junk According to Sharon Wilson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management-Northern Field Office, contamination at the Sagwon Airstrip and surrounding area consists of an estimated 900 tons of materials and includes solid wastes and hazardous materials that must be removed per EPA and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation orders. So far, the following materials have been identified:
• drilling muds (some containing chromium and barium) estimated at 120 tons
• caustic soda
• lead acid batteries estimated at 1,800 pounds
• seven abandoned buildings
• asbestos (in abandoned buildings)
• scrap metal estimated at 300 tons
• 55-gallon drums estimated to number 5,000
• petroleum, oil and lubricants estimated at 5,000 gallons
• hydrocarbon impacted soils estimated at 150 cubic yards
• a 40-foot radio tower
Voluntary cleanup agreement Leslie Griffiths, senior environmental scientist for BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., said that in 1993 BP was approached by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and ADEC about getting involved in a voluntary cleanup at the Sagwon Airstrip.
Most of the companies who directly contributed to the mess are no longer in business. Many were small oil and gas exploration companies. Ed Meggert, state on-scene coordinator for ADEC, said “The BLM destroys records after about 5 years or so, so there were no records of who had used the airstrip, but we did know that all of the early exploration took place out of the Sagwon Airstrip.”
Through a use permit with the BLM, historic owners of the airstrip operation included Interior Airways, Alaska International Air, Western Airlines and MarkAir. In 1985, BLM asked MarkAir, the last operator of the site, to clean it up, but MarkAir filed for bankruptcy and went out of business before performing any cleanup.
In addition, the site has been used from its opening through recent times by recreational hunters, fishermen and others who contributed to the contamination.
With the discovery of Prudhoe Bay, air traffic shifted to the new airstrip at Deadhorse, and the Sagwon Airstrip was abandoned.
Although BP was not directly responsible or involved with the contamination at Sagwon, it had coordinated and significantly funded voluntary cleanups of third-party, abandoned sites left by the oil and gas industry, as well as the mining industry, elsewhere in the state.
“The whole pitch has been that this is an oil and gas industry site — we as an industry ought to clean it up,” said Griffiths.
In 1998, an agreement was signed between BP, ARCO Alaska Inc., Alyeska, BLM, ADNR and ADEC that specified the extent of the cleanup effort. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and EPA were also involved.
BP, ARCO, Alyeska fund cleanup The $3 million estimated cost of the cleanup is being funded equally by BP, ARCO and Alyeska.
Steve Taylor, director of environmental policy for BP, was instrumental in getting other oil companies to agree to participate. “I think we’ve got definite commitments from Phillips Petroleum Co. and Unocal and possibly Mobil Oil Co.,” said Taylor. “We’ve been talking with Chevron USA Inc. also.” He said Grant Geophysical has also agreed to contribute funds.
Exxon, however, is not participating.
“We have done a very thorough search of our records and documentation, and there is no indication that we ever used that Sagwon facility, so there was no Exxon use or involvement in that facility,” Bob Davis, spokesman for Exxon’s Alaska operations, told PNA.
“Therefore,” he said, “it’s our position that we have no responsibility or direct role in the funding or in the coordination in the cleanup. However, we are a 20 percent interest owner in Alyeska, so there is some indirect support of the effort through our shared funding of Alyeska.”
BLM’s Wilson said the agency is contributing 10 percent, or approximately $300,000 to the effort - some in cash and some in air transportation and labor, in the form of BLM’s Alaska Fire Service firefighters and helicopter. The BLM helicopter shuttled work crews in and out of the site and helped pick up 55-gallon barrels scattered across the tundra as far as three miles away. BLM also provided the communications for the cleanup camp at the Sagwon Airstrip in the form of a satellite telephone system.
As contributions come from other parties, those funds will be reimbursed equally between BP, ARCO and Alyeska.
Government support Cleanup orders have been received from the EPA and ADEC.
Meggert said ADEC offered BP limited immunity if they participated. “They took the lead,” he said “and approached several of the other companies that had used the strip. Some participated. The ones that did will get a letter of ‘no further action.’ The ones that didn’t are potentially still on the hook for some of the cleanup costs.”
Wilson said that BP is doing the project for half the cost BLM would have incurred, simply because it has the experience and expertise.
BLM doesn’t own the land, but manages public land for the people of America, Wilson said. As administrator for the federal land the Sagwon Airstrip sits on, BLM has the overall project management authority and responsibility for the completion of the cleanup project.
Logistical restrictions; sensitive wildlife and archeological resources Wilson said ADEC also has some oversight responsibilities on the project, and its staff conducted three compliance visits in 1998, and one in 1999. Four different divisions within ADEC are or have been involved with the project, but the primary oversight has been the Fairbanks Spill Prevention and Response Group, said Wilson.
The Sagwon airfield site was selected by the state of Alaska— as part of its land entitlement under the Statehood Act - in 1992, when lands surrounding the site were selected and conveyed to the state. The state requires certification of cleanup of the airstrip site prior to accepting conveyance of the site, said Wilson.
The entire cleanup will have stretched over more than a decade when it is finally completed, with the bulk of the activity coming in the past three years. Effective cleanup of such a site can only be conducted during the daylight, thawed months between about the first of June and mid-September. However, movement of heavy equipment and trucks in the Sag River flood plain and on the tundra can only be carried out during the late winter when daylight has begun to return to the Arctic yet the ground is still frozen.
Glenn Trainor, site manager of the Sagwon cleanup effort for Arctic Slope Contractors Inc., said that this summer’s crew has seen 90 degree days as well as snow. He also said that when rain lasts for more than a day and a half, it causes work stoppage due to the risk of damage to wet tundra. He said the cleanup crews have lost four workdays this summer due to excessive wetness.
In addition, the Arctic plain is rich in sensitive plants, wildlife and archeological sites. The Sagwon Airstrip is located within the original 42,200 acres designated as the Sagwon Bluffs Area of Critical Environmental Concern. Wilson said BLM designated the site to protect those sensitive plants, wildlife and archeological sites.
“A portion of the cleanup site is within a half-mile of the Sagwon Bluffs,” Wilson said. “No ground-based activities can occur within a half-mile of the bluffs between April 15 and August 15 each year to protect raptor populations.”
The Peregrine falcon was delisted from the Endangered Species Act, Threatened and Endangered List in 1996. Its nesting habitat has been identified along the Sagwon Bluffs, to the west of the airfield. The gyrfalcon and rough-legged hawk and other unlisted raptor sites have been identified within 15 miles of the site, said Wilson.
The site also offers riparian habitat used by caribou, moose and grizzly bear.
A plant species (Erigeron muirii), identified as sensitive, has been identified within the area and it
Finally, said Wilson, it also contains the farthest north Athabaskan archeological sites known to exist.
Cleanup work begins with prioritization Because the site is not road accessible, small passenger aircraft and helicopters are used to transport on-site personnel and visitors to the site, said Wilson. Further, the whole cleanup process has been designed to be completed in stages, said Griffiths. BP hired Arctic Slope Contractors Inc., to complete the cleanup. During the summer work season, ASCI set up a 15- to 20-man temporary camp to house the field crew as well as BP, ARCO and Alyeska staff at the site so the crew could stay out there and work. The camp is managed by Taiga Ventures of Fairbanks under contract with ASCI.
During the summer of 1998, a cleanup team started work at the Sagwon Airstrip area by prioritizing different aspects of the site to immediately take care of the material that might pose the greatest environmental risk.
“The first thing we did,” said Taylor, “was clean up all the abandoned explosives that were all over. Then the hazardous waste such as drilling mud and waste fuel and oil, the normal things you would expect to find at an airstrip staging area. Not much ground contamination. We didn’t find any nasty stuff.”
Heavy metal salt lick In 1996, BLM observed that a herd of musk oxen were using the drilling muds as a mineral lick, Griffiths said. Caribou were also at risk. The drilling mud containers that had been abandoned were starting to deteriorate from sitting out in the elements, and animals were starting to get into the drilling muds, using it as a mineral lick. Meggert said some of the drilling mud containers dated as far back as the 1950s. Repackaging the drilling muds and preparing them for shipping off site became one of the next priorities.
Griffiths said Alyeska responded with an emergency operation to repackage the drilling muds in 1996. In the summer of 1998, the rest of the drilling muds were repackaged and prepared for removal, said Trainor.
During the haul-out that took place in March of this year, approximately 120 tons of drilling muds were removed from the site and disposed of, said Griffiths. She said roughly half of the drilling muds were considered hazardous materials due to the presence of heavy metals and were shipped out of state for proper disposal. The remaining, non-hazardous, drilling muds were disposed of in the Fairbanks landfill.
To the best of everyone’s knowledge, all of the drilling muds have been removed from the site.
5,000 55-gallon drums Griffiths said that work started this summer around the first of June and that about 5,000 55-gallon drums have been processed to date.
Most of the drums were collected from the immediate airstrip area. However, Wilson said approximately 90 drums were picked up by a BLM helicopter crew from around an unnamed lake, near the Sagwon Airstrip. A helicopter was used because there were no trails from the airstrip to the lake. The furthest barrel was about three miles from the airstrip site, she said.
Griffiths said that if the barrels contained any fluids, the contents were sampled to determine the required processing of the contents. The contents were then consolidated into new drums for transport and the old drums were cleaned for crushing.
Up to 14 old drums at a time were crushed in a custom-reinforced, commercial-sized cardboard box crusher to reduce their volume and simplify handling. The crushed drums were then banded to pallets for transport. The new drums of contaminants and the crushed drums will be transported off site with the haul out planned for around March of 2000, said Griffiths.
When asked if all of the barrels had been removed, Griffiths said that on a recent fly-over of an area close to the Sagwon Airstrip, she discovered “an old Quonset hut with about 400 barrels laying all around.”
While the Sagwon area has been cleaned of all known barrels, the Arctic remains littered with them by the hundreds — likely by the thousands. And more arrive every day to fuel commercial operations and private life in rural Alaska.
Still more seismic explosives found BLM’s Wilson told PNA that “A significant concern is the possibility that old seismic explosives from previous geophysical activities exist on the site, despite previous removal efforts. Crew members were trained in the identification of explosives prior to conducting site work.”
In 1987 and 1988, the military voluntarily destroyed approximately 20 to 30 tons of explosives with BLM oversight, said Wilson. The explosives were detonated in small piles to leave a number of small craters that would fill with water and blend in with the natural landscape of the area.
Trainor said that in the summer of 1998, Ecomunitions, of Chugiak, came up and detonated all the explosives that had been found up to that point. But, said Trainor, “We just found about four or five cans of it about a month ago. We’re having Ecomunitions come out and blow that up.”
“I’d like to say that that’s the last of it,” said Trainor, “but I can’t. You think you’d be able to spot that stuff, but you just have to look right at it to see it. They’re kind of rusty cans that lay on the tundra of green vegetation and brown rocks and they just blend right in. We’ve walked by the spot about 20 times where found this last group of cans.”
Trainor said his group has discussed making an “all hands” sweep of the area before leaving for the season in late August.
Trash dumps sorted out and cleaned up Two areas of historic trash dumping were evaluated for contents and alternate methods of disposal. One possibility was simply covering them in place. However, Griffiths said, that was quickly abandoned as impractical.
“Because this site sits within the flood plain of the Sag River, it does occasionally get flooded during big spring break-up floods,” said Griffiths. “If you just bury it on site, eventually it’s going to come right back. And we figured we’d need to sift through it anyway to remove any hazardous material or hazardous waste or any drums with fluids. It was going to cost us almost as much to pull those dumps apart, and find out if there was anything nasty in there, as it would just to pull them apart and haul it all away. So that’s what we opted to do.”
Site manager Trainor said metal waste at the site included automotive and heavy equipment scrap, structural steel scrap, miles of small diameter drill pipe, steel wire rope, surplus Navy fork lifts and several sleds the cleanup crews used as make-shift, mobile pallets.
Navy cleanup funds were not available for the forklifts — even though they had Navy data plates — because they had been sold as surplus to a third party who could not be identified, said BP’s Griffiths.
The crushed and palletized barrels and scrap metal will be taken to a recycling business in Fairbanks that has contracted to take the metal and either recycle or dispose of it, BLM’s Wilson told PNA.
Buildings cleaned out and demolished At press time, work was continuing at the Sagwon Airstrip. The last step is to demolish the old buildings, said Griffiths. “Some of the buildings had asbestos in them and some of them had lead based paint on the exteriors, so we’ve had to take care of all of that before we could demolish the buildings. Once the buildings are demolished, some of the wood debris will be burned on-site.”
Griffiths said that there was some discussion early on about the value of the buildings as historic landmarks. However, she said, no state agency stepped forward to take responsibility for preserving the buildings and making them safe to visitors.
Wilson said the burning of the wood debris from the demolished buildings is being conducted with BLM oversight. BLM staff has acquired a burn permit and completed a burn plan, and is getting ADEC approval for the plan. BLM will oversee the burning of the debris along the gravel airstrip, so there will be no fire hazard to the tundra.
The rest of the debris will be hauled out at the same time as the scrap metal is hauled off around March of 2000.
“Snow” road from Sagwon to pipeline access road Trainor said that during the haul out of waste in March of this year, Alyeska allowed the cleanup personnel to stay at Pump Station 3 for meals and lodging and to stage and store equipment at Pump Station 2, which is in a state of warm shut down with monitoring equipment and guard personnel on site. At a point on the pipeline access road, about six miles south of Pump Station 2, Alyeska crews plowed the snow from existing trails that lead from the access road, west across the Sag River flood plain to the Sagwon Airstrip site, a distance of about one-half mile.
“The river is very shallow,” said Trainor. “It’s only about four or five feet deep during the winter. Alyeska plowed the snow off of the frozen gravel flood plain and we just drove right across without any further preparation.”
The one-half mile trail is entirely on the Sag River flood plain so an ice road is not needed. Griffiths said there is no fragile tundra to damage and firm gravel for a base.
Wilson said the cleanup crews then moved about 150 tons of containerized solid waste and hazardous waste to the Dalton Highway where the crews filled 11 semi-trailers for haul out. The waste was moved on the trail from the site to the pipeline access road, then to Pump Station 2, where it was loaded onto 11 semi-trailers for the trip south on the Dalton Highway to Fairbanks and beyond.
Wilson said BP expects the cleanup to be completed this fall, with removal of solid wastes in March of 2000 when daylight begins to return to the Arctic, yet the ground and river are still frozen. Griffiths said it will take about two weeks to haul the material out of the Sagwon Airstrip site.
Fuel distribution site contamination still an unknown Griffiths emphasized that the original cleanup plan called for a “surface” cleanup which to date has included about 30 cubic yards of gravel contaminated with hydrocarbon products and about 30 cubic yards of gravel contaminated with drilling mud products.
However, in the process of cleaning up those two areas, a fuel distribution system was discovered to have deteriorated and the extent of the contamination from that system is still being determined.
“It will probably turn out to be a type of diesel fuel or burner oil that is used all over the state for home heating,” said BP’s Taylor. “What we will do is remove anything that would pose a lingering problem. It hasn’t gone very deep,” he said, “because that entire area is underlain with permafrost.”
However, said site manager Trainor, “We dug down about four or five feet and hit ground water.”
ADEC’s Meggert told PNA, “We’re currently waiting for plans on that from BLM because it’s BLM land. BLM is supposed to get back with an assessment. They have a backhoe there and they are trying to delineate the plume.” Meggert said he is confident BLM will be able to perform the assessment with the backhoe without doing any drilling.
BLM’s Wilson said, “A soil and ground water investigation will be undertaken to determine the extent of contamination. A cleanup of this site may delay the completion of the project. The fuels cleanup will cost an estimated $50,000 if done this fall — more if equipment has to be returned to Sagwon next summer, year 2000.”
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