The Dirt on the Dirt
YMCA's soil tests show contamination around its campus
BAR HARBOR––The soil results are back for the MDI YMCA.
In April of this year, the Bar Harbor Story reported on soil testing that was taking place on the grounds of the MDI YMCA.
Now, the “Phase II Environmental Site Assessment” report by Beacon Environmental Consultants, LLC is available online and at the bottom of this article.
The report states that the soil is contaminated. Much of the contamination is from arsenic and lead, but other hazardous chemicals are present as well. The main yard that is due east of the entryway doors and wraps around to the back of the YMCA has the majority of the contaminated samples.
Prior to the land being given to the town by the National Park Service, it was used as a storage area for park service vehicles. This could have led to contamination via gasoline and diesel fuel spillage/leakage, solvent spillage/leakage, or anything else related to vehicle storage and maintenance. According to Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s David L. Chapman, who is the project manager and a hazardous materials specialist, the fill on top of the native soil has been around for a long time and nobody can really say where it came from. Many activities have taken place on top of that fill over the years.
In addition, the abutting former Bangor Hydro property was once a coal burning electric power plant.
The site is owned by the Town of Bar Harbor and leased to the MDI YMCA. Former Bar Harbor Sustainability Coordinator Laura Berry had been involved with the getting the state to test the site.
Regarding the test results, Mount Desert Island YMCA CEO and Executive Director Ann Tikkanen said,
“On behalf of the Y community, we are very appreciative of the support we have received from the Town of Bar Harbor staff, and the coordinated effort with the State of Maine's DEP in order to complete the needed work to make our Y and the neighborhood safe for everyone. Working closely with the Y's board and trustee members, we are actively considering how best to put our outside green spaces to use, and to take full advantage of our beautiful site and landscape.”
According to the report, “Findings from this investigation suggested the urban fill materials observed at the site contained arsenic, lead, and benzo(a)pyrene at concentrations that exceeded the MEDEP Remedial Action Guidelines. These materials may represent a direct contact exposure risk to future site occupants.
Based on the findings of this assessment, Ransom recommended the following:
“The risk of human exposure to contaminated soils at the site should be mitigated. This may be accomplished by placing an engineered cover system over the contaminated soils (urban fill layer). The cover system may consist of the proposed building foundation, landscaping, clean fill material, or any combination thereof. Alternatively, if the urban fill layer is found to be geotechnically unsuitable, the urban fill layer can be removed from the site and replaced with structurally suitable fill.
“Any soil that is taken offsite should be transported for disposal at a licensed disposal facility. The laboratory analytical results obtained during this investigation can be provided to the disposal facility to facilitate disposal. Site soils, including contaminated soils, may be reused onsite. However, consideration should be given to providing a cover over reused contaminated materials, as described above, to prevent the direct contact exposure risk.
“The property owner may wish to consider application to the MEDEP Voluntary Response Action Program (VRAP). The MEDEP VRAP is a voluntary program that offers technical review of environmentally impacted sites and ultimately provides state liability protections for interested parties, including a ‘no action assurance’ (NAA) letter and a ‘certificate of completion’ letter (i.e., no further action required), provided that proper and appropriate environmental cleanup or remedial actions are completed, as approved by the MEDEP. If contaminated soils are to remain at the site, the VRAP program will likely require an environmental covenant be attached to the property deed. The environmental covenant would document the type and disposition of the contaminants identified and may include certain conditions such as prohibiting groundwater extraction and requiring notification to the MEDEP prior to future excavation activities.
“If the property owner chooses to pursue the VRAP for the entire parcel, the VRAP may require additional investigation in areas of the site not explored by the current assessment. Infrastructure improvements that displace soil (subsurface utilities) or other areas proposed for improvement may also require additional testing.”
The test results are based on thresholds set by the state called remedial action guidelines (RAG).
According to Chapman, “The RAGs are guidance and are non-enforceable, but we use the numbers to determine remedial strategy. In this case, since we’re using public funds for the assessment, we have much more control in overseeing/guiding the remedial strategy than a typical privately funded site. We usually approach any given site in terms of risk of exposure.”
For this report, there are also four levels of RAG thresholds: residential, park user, commercial worker, and construction worker. The levels are listed in ascending order with residential being the lowest RAG threshold and construction worker being the highest. In the actual report, the levels are also color coded and any level that is above a certain threshold will be highlighted with the corresponding color. However, there is at least one occurrence in this report in which commercial worker has a higher threshold than construction worker.
The soils were tested by three different methods: soil boring, hand auger, and grabbing of surficial soil. There were 31 soil borings with each sample number starting with “B.” There were three hand auger samples with each sample number starting with “HA.” And there were two grab samples taken with both sample numbers starting with “SS.”
There are also varying test depths. There are samples in the 0-2 (sometimes 3) foot depth range which is considered the “accessible” depth. There are also samples in the 2-4 foot depth range and the 4-6 foot depth range both of which are considered to be in the “potentially accessible” depth range which is anything deeper than 2 feet and up to 15 feet below ground level.
The groundwater was also tested at boring sites B-09 and B-19. According to the report, both groundwater samples and their duplicates were “non-detect for all parameters analyzed.”
CONTAMINANTS FOUND OVER GUIDELINES
There were a total of eight contaminants that tested over the state’s RAG levels. They are listed below and they are each a link to the National Library of Medicine for that particular contaminant.
Below is a list of all of the test sites at the YMCA that tested over the RAGs. It uses the same color-coded results and tiered rating system as the Beacon Environmental Consultants, LLC report.
Yellow – Above residential (RES) Remedial Action Guidelines (RAG)
Peach – Above RES and park user (PARK) RAGs
Blue – Above RES, PARK, and construction worker (CONSTR) RAGs
Green – Above RES, PARK, commercial worker (COMM), and CONSTR RAGs
TEST SITE MAPS
The Google Earth photos below show the test sites on the YMCA property and a few on the neighboring former Bangor Hydro property. The results of test borings are listed under the photos that they are shown in.
B-01 – (0-2’)
Benzo(a)anthracene – Peach
Benzo(a)pyrene – Green
Benzo(b)fluoranthene – Peach
Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene – Peach
Indeno(1,2,3-cd)Pyrene – Peach
B-01 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Green
B-02 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Green
Lead – Green
B-02 – (3-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-03 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-03 – (4-6’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-04 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Peach
B-06 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-06 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-08 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-09 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-09 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-09 – (10-12’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-10 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-10 – (4-6’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-12 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-12 – (2-3’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-13 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-13 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-14 – (1-3’)
Arsenic – Yellow
Benzo(a)anthracene – Yellow
Benzo(a)pyrene – Blue
Benzo(b)fluoranthene – Yellow
Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene – Yellow
B-14 – (3-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-17 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-17 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-18 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-18 – (4-6’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-25 – (0-3’)
Arsenic – Green
Lead – Green
B-28 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Peach
Lead – Green
B-27 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Peach
Lead – Green
Benzo(a)pyrene – peach
B-29 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Green
B-29 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Peach
B-30 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Peach
Lead – Green
Naphthalene – Green
Benzo(a)anthracene – Yellow
Benzo(a)pyrene – Peach
Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene – Yellow
Naphthalene – Yellow
B-30 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-30 – (4-6’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-31 – (0-2’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-31 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-32 – (2-4’) Duplicate of B-13
Arsenic – Yellow
B-33 – (0-3’) Duplicate of B-25
Arsenic – Green
Lead – Green
SS-01
Arsenic – Green
HA-01
Arsenic – Yellow
HA-03
Arsenic – Green
B-19 – (4-6’)
Arsenic – Yellow
B-21 – (2-4’)
Arsenic – Yellow
Full report from Beacon Environmental Consultants, LLC:
For more information on brownfield sites in Maine you can go to the State of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection website.
Disclosure: Our home is across the street from the YMCA.