Air station chemical plume reaches Oak Harbor groundwater

Published 1:30 am Friday, February 3, 2017

By Jessie Stensland / Whidbey News-Times

OAK HARBOR — A mile-long plume of a chemical that’s a likely carcinogen has migrated in groundwater from a contaminated site at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island to within Oak Harbor city limits.

No drinking water wells are in imminent danger since the residents in the area are all hooked up to city water, which is piped in from the Skagit River.

Still, government agencies don’t want the plume of 1,4-dioxane to continue its southward creep under the city.

“Human health is protected in the short term,” said Harry Craig, remedial project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency. “This is about environmental cleanup over the long term.”

Just how far into the city the plume extends is still unknown.

Craig said scientists are asking the public for help identifying old wells that might exist south of the plume. Testing those wells will have delineate the edge of the plume.

The plume is in the northeast part of town, roughly between Maple Leaf Cemetery and the highway and possibly into the area around Northeast Sumner Drive

Doug Kelly, hydrogeologist for Island County, said it’s very likely that there are wells the county doesn’t know about in the area because records weren’t kept of their locations years ago.

Anyone who knows the location of old wells in the area should leave a message at 360-396-1030.

The Navy originally was scheduled to have completed a proposed plan for dealing with the 1,4-dioxane contamination a couple of months ago, but the project was pushed back because testing for perfluorinated compounds, specifically perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, in civilian drinking water wells on North and Central Whidbey took priority, said Judy Smith, of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The plume of 1,4-dioxane — not to be confused with dioxins — spawns from Area 6, a capped landfill on the Ault Field base with adjacent areas once used as a dumping ground for liquid industrial waste, according to Craig.

In 1992, the Ault Field base was declared a Superfund site with nine areas of contamination divided into five “operable units.” A Superfund site is a polluted area designated by the federal government as requiring long-term cleanup.

Read a more complete version of this story published Jan. 20 in the Whidbey News-Times.