Eagle River Flats is an 21,000-acre estuarine salt marsh that is completely within the boundaries of Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
In response to joint public comment by CSWAB and Alaska Community Action on Toxics, EPA Region 10 is requiring Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) in Anchorage, Alaska to collect additional environmental information to determine if the long-delayed closure of the Open Burning/Open Detonation (OB/OD) unit presents an unreasonable risk to human health and the environment.
However, in terms of an enforceable timeline to initiate and complete clean closure of the former OB/OD site, EPA wrote: “We don’t yet have a timetable. The work will be dependent on the OB/OD rule being finalized. After that, we’ll work with JBER to get a schedule put together.”
The OB/OD unit is currently in delayed closure and JBER intends to delay final closure until the use of the Eagle River Flats (photo) impact area ceases or the entire 64,213-acre base closes. The use of the OB/OD is not authorized and hasn’t been since the 1980s, EPA affirmed.
CSWAB objected to the decades-long delay stating: “The longer cleanup and closure of the OB/OD areas at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson are deferred, the greater the RISK to human health and the environment and the greater the CERTAINTY that the military will argue that restoration and cleanup are technically and economically infeasible – leaving this toxic legacy for generations to come.”
EPA’s long-overdue federal rule on OB/OD operations, which was slated for release this summer, will reportedly encourage a shift toward safer alternative treatment technologies for energetic hazardous wastes. “Even when OB/OD is conducted in accordance with RCRA requirements, it also presents more risk than other treatment technologies by way of direct releases to the environment, as the evidence indicates,” EPA officials said.
OB/OD lacks controls needed for complete combustion and for control of emissions including heavy metals, perchlorate, particulates, PFAS, dioxins/furans, explosive compounds, and other toxic contaminants. Contamination of air, soils, surface water, sediments, and groundwater occur through release, deposition and kickout.
In response to our public comments, EPA Region 10 wrote that it has added a “placeholder condition” to JBER’s recently approved 10-year hazardous waste permit that will later “be populated through an agency-initiated modification” if additional actions are necessary to ensure protection of human health and the environment.
CSWAB’s objections to the Alaska burn pits are part of our decades-long campaign for new federal EPA rules to BAN the relentless open air burning of toxic munitions wastes at military and industrial facilities here in the U.S. and its territories. As part of this effort, CSWAB successfully blocked the planned open burning of 1,400 contaminated buildings as part of base closure of Wisconsin’s former Badger Army Ammunition Plant. EPA recently issued a draft federal rule restricting OB/OD that is currently under review by the White House.
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For more detail and background, visit EPA Set to Defer Cleanup of Alaska Burn Pits for Decades, Again