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Remediation and Restoration

AOC U Mercury Remediation

Title of Project:

Environmental Liability at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center Superfund Site

Sponsor (Customer):

Federal Aviation Administration, Air Traffic Organization, Environmental, Occupational Safety and Health (EOSH) Services Division

Strategic Goal:

Environmental Stewardship

Division:

Environmental Stewardship

Primary POC for Project:

Christopher D. Zevitas

Description:
The FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center (Tech Center) near Atlantic City, New Jersey is home to the Atlantic City International Airport, a New Jersey Air National Guard (NJANG) Fighter Wing, and extensive FAA facilities. Activities at the Tech Center began in 1942 with the construction of Naval Air Station Atlantic City (NASAC). In 1958, the facility was transferred to the FAA, then the Airways Modernization Board, who has used the facility as an airport and aviation safety research center. Today, the Tech Center is the nation’s premier aviation research and development, and test and evaluation facility.

The Tech Center is also FAA’s one and only Superfund Site, having earned this distinction from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1990 and today, the Tech Center accounts for nearly 80% (or $385 million) of FAA’s total estimated environmental liability. By far the most significant challenge is presented by mercury contamination found within stream and reservoir sediments and biota across the Tech Center. Fish sampled in stream and reservoir sediments at the Tech Center had the highest levels of mercury contamination ever reported in freshwater fish in the United States – by several orders of magnitude! Frustrated by rising costs and years of investigation and study that had failed to identify a mercury source or determine whether or not the FAA was responsible for the contamination, the FAA asked the Volpe Center to intervene.

The Volpe Center recommended an innovative investigative approach developed in collaboration with contaminant fate and transport researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was centered on a geochronological study with the potential of time dating mercury deposition at the site. The recommended study was subsequently carried out by the FAA and has yielded some of the strongest evidence to date suggesting that the Navy, rather than the FAA, might be responsible for the mercury contamination. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense took major steps towards acknowledging responsibility for mercury contamination at the Tech Center and this has the potential to release FAA from nearly $40 million in environmental liability.

(Sponsored by FAA)