TCE – Alameda Point Environmental Report

Veggie oil, lactose key to cleaning up toxic groundwater at Alameda Point

There are faster ways to clean up industrial solvents in groundwater, but the only viable choice for a large contamination site at Alameda Point was to turn the job over to bacteria. Known as bioremediation, a unique bacteria is breaking apart the solvent trichloroethene (TCE), also known as trichloroethylene, into a harmless substance.

It takes time and the right conditions for the bacteria to thrive—namely, an absence of oxygen and the presence of a carbon source. Readily-available carbon sources to pump into the contamination area just happen to be soy vegetable oil and dairy lactose.

Decades-long groundwater solvent cleanup completed at Building 5

A liquid solvent that is able to dissolve other substances can run, but it can’t hide from investigators, even 20 feet below ground. A toxic cleaning solvent called trichloroethane (TCE) was used to degrease metal parts in industrial operations at the Navy’s aircraft repair facility. When this solvent leaks into soil and groundwater, as it did in Building 5 at Alameda Point, the odorless vapors can cause cancer and other ill health effects to occupants of buildings above as it evaporates.

The actual process of cleaning up the contamination, while time-consuming, is not the real problem. The real challenge is finding it, measuring it, and calculating what the safe cleanup level is for future use of the building, in this case commercial. Continue reading “Decades-long groundwater solvent cleanup completed at Building 5”

Navy’s Cleanup Drawing Scrutiny

Recent revelations of falsified cleanup data at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco have caused many people to wonder about the integrity of cleanup at Alameda Point. Can we trust the Navy’s reports concluding that goals have been met and land is suitable for transfer to the City?

The Navy thinks we can. “To date, the Navy found no indication of data falsification at Alameda,” said Cecily Sabedra, Navy Environmental Coordinator for Alameda Point.

But more importantly, the rigorous and extensive testing requirements of cleanup at Superfund sites suggest that the process itself is what the public should look to for reassurance. The data review process is exactly why a couple of employees were caught handing in fake soil samples at Hunters Point.

Groundwater cleanup is a good place to look at how the process has been working at Alameda Point, considering that is where the majority of the contamination has been. The groundwater contamination resulted from releases of jet fuel and cleaning solvent and two leaky gas stations. This cleanup has left the base riddled with groundwater sampling wells and injection wells used for injecting cleanup solutions or extracting pollutants. Continue reading “Navy’s Cleanup Drawing Scrutiny”