Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 5, 1993 TAG: 9312050215
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
No more would the Roanoke River, bloated by torrential rains, spill out of its channel, coursing through the city, washing through homes and businesses and causing millions of dollars in damage.
Easy, right? After all, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is on the job, the same engineering whizzes who regularly dredge the Mississippi, the Hudson and most vital waterways in the country.
Except for one hitch.
The banks of the Roanoke River are laced with petroleum, heavy metals and other contaminants - the legacy of Roanoke's industrial vigor decades ago.
The discovery of old dumps, abandoned underground fuel tanks, and other toxic sites has brought the flood control project, if not to a halt, to a slow crawl through a morass of environmental regulations.
"We're basically trying to do a public safety project and we're ending up with a public health project," says John Peters, a city engineer.
City officials speculated as recently as February that the three-year construction job would begin in early 1994. Now, they're hoping they can resume a final round of environmental tests by then.
The widening and deepening of the river channel was designed to slow the rush of water during storms, and reduce the threat of flooding. The project - confined to the 10 miles of river that wind through the city - has been in various stages of planning for years, but hit the fast track after the devastating 1985 flood.
City voters have approved a $7.5 million bond to help pay for the project, which currently stands at $38 million. And the Corps has agreed to kick in about $23 million, as long as the project meets the federal government's complicated formula ensuring $1 of benefit for every $1 of investment.
The city barely qualifies under that formula.
Nearly 60 sites contain pollutants at levels exceeding at least one guideline used by the city's consultants.
Two crucial uncertainties still loom over the project:
Which standards must the city meet to get rid of the contaminated silt and soil it digs up?
And, if the city drops the project, would contaminated sites still have to be cleaned up now that they've been identified?
Those thorny issues have been the subject of negotiations between the city and state for months, reducing the project first envisioned 20 years ago to a dispute over infinitesimal amounts of poison.
Roanoke says the state is taking too long to set acceptable levels of contamination for the project, and that some proposed levels are too low.
Lower levels mean less risk to public health and the environment, but they translate into higher costs for the city.
The higher the contamination thresholds are set, the less expensive the project becomes, and the better the city's chance of keeping costs within the Army Corps' cost/benefit formula. Without the Corps' money, the project would surely die.
Those contamination levels haven't yet been set, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality, because Roanoke hasn't provided enough specific information. Regulators only recently got summaries of the city's environmental reports, which fill 18 thick books.
"It's just your basic poker game," Peters said.
Last month at the city's request, officials from both governments met. Not all the cards were laid on the table, but efforts to resolve the issues are back on track, according to Peters.
Early railroad construction followed the gently rolling banks of the river. Industrial development soon followed the railroad. An environmental headache now follows the manufacturing heyday.
Arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium and lead have been measured throughout the project area in levels ranging from trace amounts to, in one case, 45 times a health-based guideline. An assortment of petroleum compounds permeates almost the entire stretch, and cancer-causing PCBs make an occasional appearance.
From the outset, city officials have said these contaminants, undisturbed and sealed in the dirt, do not endanger the public. No studies have been conducted to support the assertion.
The environmental reports show that contaminants have reached ground water at several sites. Dewberry & Davis, a Roanoke consulting firm hired by the city, noted that the region's folding and fractious geology increases the chance for ground water to mix with river water.
No separate tests have been done to see if these chemicals, once they were located, identified and measured, are seeping into the Roanoke River, which is not used here for drinking water. The town of Altavista in Campbell County - about 50 river miles from Roanoke - is the first community downstream that draws the river's water for drinking.
Neil Obenshain, director of the regional water division of the Department of Environmental Quality, said the agency samples the river monthly and analyzes fish tissue for toxins yearly. Nothing unusual has shown up in recent years to indicate the sites are leaking, he said. But over the next few weeks, his staff will review the new information from the city to see if any further water quality testing is warranted, Obenshain said.
Until recently, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has remained detached from the project, hoping the city and state reach accord on the complicated issues. Roanoke has sent the EPA information from the environmental reports, which the EPA is now reviewing to see if a public health threat exists, said Jim Carper, project manager for the Corps.
He hopes to set up a meeting with the Corps, the EPA and Roanoke by the end of the year.
The city faces a complex dilemma unlike any it's dealt with before.
Left alone, the tainted river banks apparently pose no public health threat. Moreover, most the contamination occurred before cleanup regulations kicked in, so the toxic sites apparently pose no immediate legal problems for the city or the property owners.
But here's the catch.
The city must get rights to land along Roanoke River to do the project, and so assume responsibility for future environmental problems. To avoid liability, the city needs to know if any sites are polluted to the point of being considered hazardous under the law. But environmental assessments have stopped short of making that determination.
If hazardous sites are found, the EPA requires they be reported and cleaned up. An expense like that could jeopardize the project, if the city assumes the task. If the city doesn't pay, someone must - and that could be current property owners who accept responsibility.
Once the city starts scooping out mud to widen the channel, exposed toxins could pollute the river.
"My concern from the start of this project has been the impact on the stream," said Steve Wright, the state's regional enforcement and compliance manager for waste management.
Once disturbed, the dredge becomes contaminated waste that must be properly disposed.
"If it's not going to a landfill, then it's going somewhere else. Where is somewhere else?" Wright said. "We've told them that they need to tell us."
Where the dirt ends up will determine how "clean" it has to be.
All 1.24 million tons of it.
Picture a football field, 120 yards long and 50 yards wide, piled with mud about 12 stories high. That's what will be left from the river's bed and banks.
Using the dirt in residential areas would mean cleaning it to almost pristine conditions - very difficult, and costly. At the other extreme, hazardous wastes would have to be disposed of in a licensed facility.
Most of the dredge, Peters said, would be classified as industrial waste. As such, it could dumped in a landfill, which might cost $60 million. It's not considered a viable option for the city.
Some will be used to make berms as part of the flood control project, Peters said.
Some could be mixed with cleaner dirt, diluting the toxic concentration, and used to build an industrial site near the Roanoke Regional Airport, for example, Peters said. And some dirt could be used as daily cover at the city's landfill - provided it meets state standards.
One of the most troublesome sites on the river has been "unofficially" dropped from the project, Peters said. The Roanoke Industrial Center, formerly the site of American Viscose, was found to have extremely high levels of heavy metals in the soil and groundwater. The site was investigated by the federal Superfund program in the late 1980s, but is currently not listed as a priority cleanup site, according to the EPA.
The Corps is still waiting for the city and state to settle their differences, however, before making a final decision.
Carper, the Corps' manager, noted that without the project, future floods could very well wash contaminants downstream, potentially wreaking more harm than if they were removed under careful conditions.
In the end, it'll be up to City Council to give the nod to start digging.
"Council will have the ultimate decision as to how much risk we'll take," Peters said.
by CNB