Heavy storms impede cleanup

The river work is targeting cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- The heavy rains dropped across the region by hurricanes in September have delayed the removal of contaminated sediment from the Shenango River.
The storms dumped so much water into the area that the river was flowing at 10 times its normal velocity for this time of year, said Victor Janosik, remedial projects manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The high water and heavy flow have put the cleanup project about four weeks behind schedule, he said.
Nevertheless, the contractor doing the work has told the EPA the company still hopes to complete the work as planned by the end of December.
If it doesn't meet that timeline, project completion might have to be pushed back to spring, Janosik said.
URS Corp. will dig an estimated 4,100 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from the river.
The company began moving equipment onto the work site in mid-August, but the extreme wet weather has prevented the excavation of any sediment so far, Janosik said.
The work is part of a larger cleanup of the former Westinghouse Electric Corp. plant on Sharpsville Avenue.
The river work is targeting polychlorinated biphenyls, a cancer-causing insulating fluid used in the manufacture of electrical transformers before the substance was banned by the federal government in 1977.
Here's the situation
PCBs and other hazardous materials left behind by the manufacturing process have been nearly all cleaned up on the plant grounds. The EPA, which put the plant on the Superfund hazardous site list in 1990, is now concentrating on getting contaminated areas outside the plant cleaned.
Viacom Inc., the successor to Westinghouse, is picking up the tab for the off-site work, which has a $6 million cost estimate.
URS has built a stone dock reaching out from the west side of the river just upstream from the Aqua Pennsylvania Inc. water treatment plant.
That's where one of the river-bottom excavation sites is located, Janosik said.
There are two other sites in the project, one directly across the river from the treatment plant and the other farther upstream on the east side of the river just below the Clark Street bridge.
Janosik said the plan is to excavate up to four feet of contaminated sediment in some areas and haul it away for disposal at special landfills.
An additional part of the project calls for the removal of an estimated 300 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated riverbank soil on the east side of the river just downtown from Clark Street.
URS is using a crane mounted on a river barge to drive sheet piling as much as 30 feet into the riverbed to create dry excavation sites.
The piling interlocks, creating work areas from which the water can be pumped.
Water will be tested continually to make sure no contaminants are leaving the work sites, Janosik said, and the final three inches left in the work area will be pumped out and treated to remove any contaminants before actual excavation begins.
What's next
The sediment will be loaded onto containers on barges and then taken to the dock and loaded onto trucks to be hauled away for proper disposal.
Sediment that is too wet for immediate disposal will be dumped onto a 100-by-30-foot asphalt pad for dewatering. That water also will be treated to remove all contaminants before it is returned to the river, Janosik added.
Aqua Pennsylvania has made laboratory space available for URS and EPA use at its treatment plant.
The contractor has taken extensive precautions to protect the water company's intake line located just downstream from one of the excavation sites.
Tests taken as the stone dock was put into the river and pilings driven into the riverbed haven't turned up any traces of PCBs, Janosik said.
Aqua Pennsylvania, which provides drinking water for 80,000 people in Mercer, Lawrence and Trumbull counties, is taking some precautions of its own.
The company has never found any PCBs in tests of raw or treated water, but it has set up a plan to add granular activated charcoal to the treatment process at the intake point if it becomes necessary.
Granular-activated charcoal is the EPA-recommended treatment for removing PCBs from water.
The removal of the river sediment and the contaminated riverbank soils will complete the exterior cleanup around the plant.
Westinghouse ceased operations at the plant in 1985 and has since sold it off in pieces.
AK Steel owns the northern end and has a pipe warehouse there. Winner Steel Services occupies the southern end.
Winner Development LLC owns the rest, about 1 million square feet of industrial and office space that is being converted into an industrial park.
Once the interior cleanup is completed, the EPA will consider removing the plant from the Superfund list, Janosik said.
gwin@vindy.com