5. Sites needed to have a realistic chance of success achievable within our budget. This
eliminated some of the more distant formerly used defense (FUD) sites, such as the NE
Cape site on St. Lawrence Island and Manning Point on the North Slope. Such remote
sites are typical of the proposed application for this technology, but they are too
expensive for a demonstration requiring more frequent monitoring.
6. Because we had little time to obligate the funds once they were received, we selected
sites where our site partners had a contracting mechanism already in place.
7. Additional criteria for site selection were the requirements, interest, investment in time,
and likelihood of teamwork with potential partners.
3.3 Test Site History and Characterization
The three sites were all former DoD sites and the contaminants were mainly the result of fuel
storage and use on the facilities; a dry-cleaning facility also contributed to contamination at
Barrow.
3.3.1 Annette Island
The Annette Island site, on the Metlakatla peninsula of the island, is in the southern panhandle of
Alaska below Juneau and Ketchikan (Figure 8). The U.S. Army Air Force Annette Island
Landing Field was established in 1940 under a use permit granted by the Department of the
Interior. The War Department, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Civil Aeronautics
Administration (CAA, the predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration), and the National
Weather Bureau, constructed and operated the airfield and supporting facilities. During
construction, approximately 35 fuel tanks with a combined capacity of one million gallons were
installed at various places on the island.
The Metlakatla Indian Community owns the Annette Island site. Soil samples in 1988 indicated
that substantial contamination of the surrounding soil existed near the tank farm. The climate is
wet and relatively mild by cold-regions standards. The area receives a high annual precipitation
averaging 155 inches a year, with an average temperature of 45.9 F. The site is near the old tank
farm and is a relatively flat area on the east side of Tangas Harbor; the site is accessible by road.
Access to Annette Island is by air or barge from Ketchikan.
3.3.2 Campion / Galena
Campion Air Force Station (AFS) is a former long-range radar site located approximately six
miles east of the interior town of Galena, Alaska (Figure 8), operational from 1952 to 1984. The
facility was replaced by a Minimally Attended Radar installed at Galena Air Force Base in 1984,
and then demolished in 1986. For storage of heating oil fuels, Campion AFS operated a tank
farm that was serviced by underground fuel pipelines from a barge-accessible fuel transfer
facility on the Yukon River. Soil samples taken in the tank farm area during a 1995 investigation
revealed DRO concentrations ranging from 36 mg/kg to 75,000 mg/kg and gasoline-range
organics (GRO) concentrations ranging from 59 mg/kg to 7,500 mg/kg, respectively. The
hydrocarbon distribution and GRO/DRO ratios indicated possible prior storage of gasoline fuel
or arctic-grade heating oil or both.
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