Atlantic Wood Superfund site to get stimulus money

PORTSMOUTH

Oft-delayed plans for cleaning up the highly contaminated Atlantic Wood Industries site in Portsmouth got a boost Wednesday - $5 million in federal stimulus funds.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced the move as part of a $600 million spending package aimed at hastening the restoration of 50 "Superfund" toxic-waste sites across the country.

Atlantic Wood is the only Superfund project in Virginia that will receive stimulus dollars, according to the EPA. "The people of Portsmouth can one day look at this site as a tremendous success story," William C. Early, the EPA's acting regional administrator for the mid-Atlantic, said in a statement.

Though Atlantic Wood was declared a Superfund site in 1990, work has not begun there. Progress bogged down in studies and debate over the extent of chemical contamination, how best to contain it, and who is responsible for paying for proposed actions.

The 48-acre property sits on the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, next door to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, which also is a Superfund site.

At Atlantic Wood, workers for 60 years coated pilings and telephone poles with tarlike creosote as a preservative, then often dumped the wastes into the river.

Studies have shown that affected river-bottom samples contain some of the nation's highest concentrations of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, suspected of causing cancer.

Roy Seneca, an EPA spokesman in Philadelphia, said the $5 million in stimulus money should allow the agency to hire some contractors and start preliminary site work late this summer. That's about a year ahead of schedule, he added.

"It creates some jobs and gets us one step closer to really getting going out there," Seneca said Wednesday.

The money will pay to stabilize creosote-soaked soils, build a berm to separate contaminated earth from clean earth, repair damaged wetlands and keep the shoreline from eroding into the Elizabeth River, according to an EPA fact sheet.

The EPA chose a cleanup strategy in 2007, estimated to cost $45 million. Its hallmark is the construction of at least two 8-foot-tall walls in the river itself. Workers would pluck tons of contaminated mud and muck from the river bottom and store the wastes behind the walls.

The state and local environmentalists continue to have questions and concerns about the strategy; Seneca said the EPA is continuing to negotiate with all sides and expects a consensus by this summer.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com