Borough says emergency response to Point Higgins Elementary diesel spill wound down; cleanup to continue

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly heard an update Sept. 15 that the immediate emergency response to a diesel fuel spill at Point Higgins Elementary School has ended and cleanup work is continuing under contractor oversight.

Emergency manager Steve Radeen told the assembly that the borough’s response phase is finished and the site has been turned over to Nortek (Nortech/Nortek Engineering) for remediation. “We had our final meeting, as far as the emergency response portion of this goes, and it's been turned over to Nortek for cleanup,” Radeen said.

Nortek project manager Jason Ginter described the current work as excavation of diesel-contaminated soils, loading that material into containers and shipping it off-site for disposal. “At this point … the emergency response action is over, and we're down to excavating out the diesel contaminated soils and getting that loaded into containers and then shipped out for disposal,” Ginter said. He added the team has been conducting indoor air sampling at the school; those sampling units were being pulled the evening of Sept. 15 and sent to a laboratory, with results expected by the end of the week or early the following week.

Public works staff and Nortek said they will continue excavation until screening and laboratory analysis show the contamination is removed. Radeen and Ginter said crews already removed contaminated soil by hand from two downstream private properties and plan to resample downstream areas after the bulk of work on borough property is completed; more material may need removal where the discharge reached a water course.

The presentation included details on handling recovered liquids and contaminated materials. Ginter said sorbent pads that collected recoverable oil have been processed at Full Cycle in Ward Cove, where crews “squeeze the pads through a wringer” to measure recovered gallons. Through Sept. 4, the team had recovered about 620 gallons of liquid. Contaminated soils are being shipped to Seattle and then to Roosevelt, Washington, for disposal in a special-waste landfill.

Assembly members asked whether the spill affected private properties and about mitigation and disposal. Radeen and Ginter described the downstream removals already completed and said the borough will resample and remove any further contaminated material that testing shows is present. Assembly members also thanked staff for providing daily updates during the response.

The assembly’s consent calendar later approved several emergency contracts related to the spill response, including awards to Alaska Commercial Divers Inc., Burnett Construction LLC, Full Cycle, and Nortek Inc., as listed in the consent calendar that passed Sept. 15. The consent calendar vote carried on a single roll call with six affirmative votes.

The borough said it will continue to post recordings of the meeting and provide updates as cleanup proceeds. Laboratory results and subsequent sampling will determine whether additional excavation or actions are needed.