GUILDERLAND — The Army Corps of Engineers says no further action is needed in a burn pit area, which the Corps has cleaned up and monitored, at the defunct Army depot in Guilderland Center. But concerns were raised at a public session Monday about future building in an area with elevated soil-gas concentrations.

A long-time member of an advisory board meant to guide the cleanup process asked: What if future property owners are not aware of dangers from remaining vapors?

And a Guilderland school leader asked: Will the federal government cover costs to mitigate “vapor intrusion” if a new structure is built in the area with elevated concentrations?

For 15 years, Gregory Goepfert has been the project manager of the United States Army Corps of Engineers cleanup project at the former depot, on land now largely occupied by the Northeastern Industrial Park, adjacent to the Guilderland High School campus. The depot was used by the Army from the 1941 to the 1969, during World War II and the Korean War. Some of the debris left by the Army was hazardous.

Goepfert estimated for The Enterprise that the federal government has spent $4 million on testing, defining, monitoring, capping, and cleaning up the nine sites at the old depot considered a risk to human health and labeled as Areas of Concern, or AOCs.

Monday night, Goepfert conducted a session at Guilderland High School attended by a score of people, reviewing how the Army Corps had handled the burn pit area, AOC 3, over the years and concluding there are “no unacceptable risks” for school staff and students or for industrial park workers inside and out.

Investigations conducted in 2000 and 2001 had found soil with volatile organic compounds and semi-volatile organic compounds, known as VOCs and SVOCs; and polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs; pesticides; and metals.

VOCs are compounds that are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids and include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. VOCs are emitted by thousands of products, ranging from paints and strippers to glues and adhesives.

Long-term exposure to volatile organic compounds can cause damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine; short-term exposure to VOCs can cause eye and respiratory-tract irritation, headaches, dizziness, visual disorders, fatigue, loss of coordination, allergic skin reactions, nausea, and memory impairment.

PCBs are a group of toxic, persistent chemicals used in electrical transformers and capacitors for insulating purposes, and in gas pipeline systems as lubricant. PCBs accumulate in animal tissue with pathogenic effects.

Long-term exposure to PCBs may have serious effects on the liver, immune system, endocrine system, reproductive system, and thyroid hormone levels, which in turn may affect normal growth and development, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine; exposure may damage the nervous system, causing headaches, numbness, weakness, and tingling in the arms and legs; it may also cause learning deficits and changes in activity.

The burn-pit area begins less than 800 feet from the back of the high school on the northern portion of the former depot.

Originally, the burn-pit area was believed to be about a half-acre, but that jumped to about 5.8 acres in 1999 when Quantum Geophysics Inc. performed a geophysical evaluation of the site. Quantum identified 11 likely disposal areas, according to a Corps-commissioned report by Parsons Engineering Science Inc.

Aerial photographs indicate the area had several dumps and burn pits, beginning in the 1940s, the report states. While interviews with former employees did not reveal the substances buried or burned during the 1950s — the Army left behind no records — patrols were assigned twice daily to check the pit because it sometimes began to burn spontaneously.

The worst of the obvious soil contamination of the burn pit recorded during a field test was found at a test site about 500 feet from the fence separating the industrial park from the Guilderland High School property.

Soils in the area, at a depth of 14 feet, were found to be far in excess of criteria set by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation for seven types of carcinogenic materials and heavy metals such as aluminum, lead, and iron. PCBs above the state standard were also found.

In several samples, dioxins were found at between two and three inches below the surface. In addition to byproducts of manufacturing, dioxins are caused by burning plastics. The worst contamination was at a test site about 300 feet from the school property line.

Water sampled from monitoring wells showed that some contaminants were above state standards. The Army Corps concluded that a plume containing these contaminants appeared to be moving in a north-northwesterly direction, which is toward the school campus.

A new building in the industrial park in 2002 had angered some local residents on the Restoration Advisory Board; they were concerned that the contamination would find its way into the nearby Black Creek, which feeds the Watervliet Reservoir, Guilderland’s major source of drinking water.

“What if nobody’s aware?”

Ted Ausfeld, who had served as a member of the Restoration Advisory Board and was acknowledged by Goepfert on Monday for his work, pointed out what he saw as a contradiction in Goepfert’s presentation.

On the one hand, Goepfert had said that the only remaining risk would be “soil vapor intrusion” into a future building constructed in the area identified as having the highest soil gas concentrations. Such areas lie on property now owned by the Northeastern Industrial Park and the Guilderland School District. 

Both the school district and the industrial park, Goepfert said, have “been notified of the need to assess site conditions if a future building is planned.”

On the other hand, Goepfert said that the Army Corps “will not implement land-use controls nor conduct any future monitoring. All existing monitoring wells associated with AOC 3 will be properly closed.”

When Ausfeld asked about the discrepancy, Goepfert said, “The Corps doesn’t implement land-use control; the property owner does.”

“What if there were a problem and nobody’s aware of it?” asked Ausfeld, stating it was his understanding that “the Army Corps is responsible forever.”

Goepfert concurred that, if something were to be discovered 25 years from now, the Army Corps would bear responsibility for a problem generated by Army activity.

Ausfeld, who has since retired, worked for the town of Guilderland in in the mid-1970s when the town was building a new water plant on land that had once been part of the Army depot.

“We didn’t know the pits were there,” said Ausfled of when the problems were first discovered, and the town ended up bearing much of the cost. “There should be a direct route back to get you people right away,” said Ausfeld.

“We’re always on call,” said Goepfert, noting there is a $500 million backlog of work to be done cleaning up formerly used defense sites, known as FUDS. He also noted that the Army Corps is continuing to monitor AOC 1, the southern landfill.

“No matter where you build in the Northeastern Industrial Park, you’ve got a potential problem,” said Ausfeld. He said he was sure, sometime in the future, someone would want to build there. “You start construction, boom, there’s a problem…Just sayin’,” he concluded.

“The current property owners are aware of their responsibilities as property owners and are also aware of my phone number,” responded Geopfert.

After the meeting, The Enterprise asked Goepfert how someone in the future owning the property with potential risks would know about those risks. Goepfert said that tracing property titles would show it was once owned by Army; asked if the title would indicate the danger, he said, “No.”

He also said, “I would imagine the town of Guilderland has something in their planning documents that would show that this was a formerly used defense site.”

Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber, who for years chaired the town’s zoning board, told the Enterprise on Wednesday, “Recent case law says there’s an obligation to check with the zoning and planning department.”

He said it is unlikely a future builder in the zone with vapor intrusion would find any information on that in the Albany County Clerk’s Office, viewed as “the official repository.” But the town’s zoning and highway departments do maintain files, Barber said, although he added he would have to check to see if such information is included.

Further, he surmised the industrial park had “binders full of documents” on the hazardous wastes uncovered there.

“I think there is a lot of institutional knowledge out there,” concluded Barber, although he couldn’t, on short notice, point to specific documents, as Goepfert had suggested.

Asked if designating potentially hazardous building areas should be part of town zoning, Barber said, “It’s not in the zoning code. It’s part of due diligence for anyone buying property.”

“What can you provide going forward?”

A second question was raised on Monday by Neil Sanders, the assistant superintendent for business for the Guilderland School District. In 2002, as the school district prepared to build a new bus garage, the construction work unearthed some Army debris.

The Army Corps paid about half-a-million dollars to clean it up. The district had purchased, for one dollar, about seven acres from the industrial park for the bus-facility project. Three types of debris were initially unearthed in August 2002 — glass vials containing chlorine used by soldiers to purify water; bottles with orthotolidine tables to test the safety of water; and tubes with anti-lewisite, which soldiers rubbed in their eyes to prevent blistering.

In September of that year, more was unearthed, including bottles with syringes containing water and citric acid used for intravenous regeneration of blood plasma; skin ointment tubes with packaging materials that contained lead; and at least one can of an oily-type of substance.

Over 1,300 tons of soil were removed from the site, dispersed to landfills designed for various kinds of wastes — one was in Michigan; another in Pennsylvania.

Ground-penetrating radar was used to see if there were other kinds of debris in the ball-field area at the south end of the school property; nothing was found.

The next year, another 2,700 tons of soil and debris were removed from the burn pit area on property owned by the Northeastern Industrial Park.

On Monday night, Sanders said the school district was concerned about any future risks and asked, “What can you provide going forward?”

“The risk is not in place until perhaps a new building is constructed,” responded Geopfert. He added, “We understand your concern about future liabilities to the district.”

Goepfert stressed that comments from Monday’s meeting would become part of the record, and that people can submit written comments through Jan. 31, 2017 to: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York district, attention Mr. G. Goepfert, CENAN-PP-E, Room 1811, 25 Federal Plaza, New York, NY  10278.

After the meeting, Goepfert told The Enterprise, in response to Sanders’s concerns, “Five years down the road, under our current policies, for vapor intrusion for a building that does not exist today, we would not shoulder that burden.”

He also said of Sanders, “We have a public process where he gets to voice his concerns…I will discuss it with my team...I haven’t really answered him,” said Goepfert.

“I had hoped for an answer,” Sanders told The Enterprise after the meeting. “We can wait to get that response.”

“Within the acceptable risk range”

“The important thing,” Goepfert stressed to The Enterprise, “is students and teachers are safe in the schools and workers are safe at the industrial park.”

During his presentation, Goepfert said that 34 samples were taken from permanent monitoring wells and 22 from temporary wells over two years, from 2013 to 2015.

He had noted earlier, in 2010, when a Guilderland mother had raised concerns about water safety at the high school, that the school gets its drinking water from Guilderland’s municipal system. The athletic fields, however, are watered from a school well nearby and the mother was concerned, saying of the athletes, “They are literally eating the dirt.”

When asked at the time if athletes could be harmed on playing fields watered by a well with that level of VOCs, Goepfert said, “I don’t think you’d have a hazard. It would volatilize; it would break down in the air.”

TCE — trichloroethene, a volatile organic compound, typically used as a degreaser — was detected in shallow temporary wells in the vicinity of the bus parking area next to the Black Creek in June 2013, Goepfert reported during Monday’s presentation; this discovery resulted in the installation of three new permanent monitoring wells.

In 2015, Goepfert said, groundwater tested from permanent monitoring wells and from the school district’s irrigation wells met the state’s water quality standards.

Also, Goepfert reported, 25 gas samples were collected — 20 of soil gas, three of sub-slab soil gas, one of indoor air, and one of outdoor air. Elevated soil gas concentrations of TCE and PCE — perchlorethylene, a volatile organic compound primarily used for dry-cleaning fabrics and degreasing metals — were found eight feet below ground partly on school-district property near the bus garage and partly on nearby industrial park property.

Indoor air guidelines were met, said Goepfert, and sub-slab vapors were at levels not requiring actions to address indoor air at the school’s bus garage, maintenance building, or the Building 28 warehouse in the industrial park.

A human health risk assessment was conducted as well for the burn pit area, evaluating the exposure for outdoor and indoor workers and for students and teachers as well as for nearby Guilderland Center nursing home residents.

“Excess lifetime cancer risks…are within or below the acceptable risk range,” said Goepfert.

Clifford Opdyke, Ph. D., with the Army Corps, agreed, noting of cancer, “The background rate now is between 25 and 33 percent.”

“There is no vapor-intrusion risk,” said Goepfert, to students or teachers in the schools nor for workers in the bus garage or maintenance buildings. Further, he said, “There are no threats to human health associated with AOC 3 for current, or reasonably foreseeable future use of the school district, Northeastern Industrial Park, or offsite residential properties including the nursing home.”

“There is no exposure right now,” said Bridget Boyd with the state’s Department of Health, stating that her department agrees with the Army Corps’ assessment that no further action is needed for the burn pit area.

Similarly, John Swartwout, section chief with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, said that, on this particular project, the DEC has a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Defense in which the state agency coordinates with the federal one.

“We’ve been fully involved,” said Swartwout. “We work hand in glove with the state health department…We’ve been involved since the beginning and look forward to getting this to a conclusion shortly.”