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Groups watch river project
Plan to dredge toxins in Va. could be applied to Baltimore Harbor; 'Very tricky operation'

By Joel McCord
February 26, 2001

On the bottom of the Elizabeth River lie sediments 18 times more poisonous than those under Baltimore Harbor.

The mud is so full of contaminants that more than half the fish sampled from Scuffletown Creek, a tributary of the river near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, have liver cancer. And most of them have lesions that could lead to cancer.

The extremely high levels of oil-based toxins, known as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), helped a residents' group persuade the leaders of four cities bordering the river and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to risk $6 million to dredge 60,000 cubic yards of contaminated muck from about 3 acres under the creek as part of a demonstration project. If it goes well, the dredging could be replicated in the bay's other toxic hot spots -- the Anacostia River in Washington and Baltimore Harbor.

"It's the first time that we know of in the country that a major sediment cleanup of a toxic river was initiated by community work rather than legal action," says Marjorie Mayfield, executive director of the community group, the Elizabeth River Project.

Scientists are leery of dredging contaminated sediments because of the risk that some of the mud loaded with poisons will be stirred and settle elsewhere. Often, they say, it's better to cover the sediment with thick layers of clean sand, or do nothing and let new sediments coming into the river cover the old.

"The contaminants stick to the sediments, and if you just leave them be, they stay there," says Robert M. Summers, a toxins expert with the Maryland Department of the Environment. "Assuming the source of contamination has been stopped, the natural sediments, over time, cover the contamination."

But the Elizabeth River, the worst of the Chesapeake Bay's toxic hot spots, is sluggish and doesn't carry much sediment. And the areas of the worst contamination are only 4 to 5 feet deep.

"If we tried to cap the contaminated spots, we'd be creating dry land," says Craig Seltzer, an oceanographer in the Corps of Engineers Norfolk District.

Mayfield was among a group of four who laid the foundation for the Elizabeth River Project at a kitchen table in Virginia Beach in 1991. The organization now has approximately 1,000 dues-paying members and a $475,000 annual budget.

To raise money and call attention to their cause, members sold bumper stickers and T-shirts with the slightly risque slogans "Clean Lizzy's Bottom" and "Ask Me About Elizabeth's Bottom." They had "Bottoms Up" coffee mugs, with slogans written in ink that disappears when hot drinks are poured into the mugs.

Mayfield says it was "an interesting sell," but it worked. The Corps of Engineers got federal money, and the cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake -- all of which lie on one of the Elizabeth's three branches -- and the Commonwealth of Virginia agreed to provide the local funds for the work.

The river creates more stress on the bay from toxic chemicals than any other tributary, says Diana Bailey, a Corps of Engineers spokeswoman in Norfolk.

The dredging, the most aggressive strategy Chesapeake Bay scientists are pursuing to rid the bay and its tributaries of dangerous chemicals, could start within two years.

The "Toxics 2000" strategy, unveiled in December by the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program, depends heavily on reducing toxic emissions from industries through voluntary action and tougher permit standards, and by improving sewage treatment plants.

In 1996, MDE examined a plan to cap Baltimore Harbor's sediments, so contaminated with the banned pesticide chlordane that children and women of child-bearing age are warned not to eat fish caught there. It abandoned the idea because of fears of stirring contaminated sediments and making matters worse.

"I wouldn't say we've ruled it out long-term, but so far we haven't come up with an appropriate project," Summers says. "It's a very tricky operation."

Beth McGee, chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service's environmental contaminants section, says she would "love to see something similar happen in Baltimore Harbor."

The Elizabeth River has been heavily industrialized for nearly 200 years. The Norfolk Navy Yard, one of the largest in the world, shares the river with civilian shipyards.

At the turn of the 19th century, loggers floated wood down the river from the forests of North Carolina to mills and shipping companies that lined the river. Plants that treated the wood with creosote lined the banks of the river through the middle of the 20th century, allowing oils and contaminants from partially burned wood to leak into the water.

Researchers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at nearby Gloucester Point found concentrations in the sediments so high during studies in the 1980s that it was "practically pure creosote," says Morris Roberts, director of the institute.

"You could have mined it if it were metal," he says.

Atlantic Wood, the creosoting plant across the Elizabeth from Scuffletown Creek, has been closed for years and is now an EPA Superfund site. Its buildings are gone. A lone creosote tank stands out in a field of brown grass.

Rusted barges are tied to pilings on one side of the creek at its mouth, about 80 yards across the water from a public park with a boat ramp and blue-roofed picnic pavilion. Just up the river are the Navy's hulking aircraft carriers and destroyers.

"This work will be good for us to demonstrate what can be done positively. Then we can go after the big projects," Seltzer says. "This may be the first time we've done a project with the public instead of fighting them."

The Corps of Engineers is to complete a feasibility study by July 1. The dredging, using high-tech scoops designed to keep the contaminated mud from escaping into the river, could start by 2003, Seltzer says.

"It's sort of like operating on a cancer patient," he says. "You go in and see how far the disease has spread, then surgically remove it."

The only problem is to determine what to do with the mud. They have some ideas, but they're working on it, Seltzer says.