Good for the soil: making sure the 'dirt don't hurt'.

• Author: Gallion, Mari
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Environmental Services

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While recycling for the sake of lengthening the lives of our state's landfills is a common practice amongst Alaskans, many people outside of the construction industry don't put much thought into the fact that contaminated soil must also be dumped into an appropriate landfill if it cannot be sufficiently cleaned.

Living in a state rich with natural resources, construction sites, and military activity definitely has its advantages. However, there is growing awareness of how the sites of such activity carry potential to negatively impact human health and the environment if they are not properly remediated.

"The state has been fantastic over the years with trying to develop a program that renders the soil safe for human health and the environment," says Brad Quade, operations manager at Alaska Soil Recycling, a division of Anchorage Sand and Gravel.

According to Quade, soil remediation became a practice in Alaska when the federal government began recognizing that there is a need for us to change our habits and fix some of the damage we'd set in place. "Everything has to be done with the state involved," Quade says.

The Way We Were

Once upon a time in Alaska, more than twenty-five years ago, soils remediation was not a common practice. According to Quade, "In the old days, if you needed some fill, you could just wait for the trucks to come in. If you had some fill you wanted to get rid of, you could find a place to get rid of it. Nowadays, you have to be very careful about the soils you are allowing others to bring into your site. You can't take material from just any place anymore because of the laws we have in place."

Quade says in the beginning of the remediation process there is "a lot of investigative work in order to understand the degree and type of contamination." From there, the workers propose a plan to the state of Alaska to restore the site to what is considered safe for human health and environment. Although the state mandates varying standards of "clean," depending on whether the soil will be re-used at the same site or moved to another, the policy at Alaska Soil Recycling is to clean the soil to the state's most restrictive standard every time.

However, as Quade points out, "The most restrictive levels do not necessarily mean non-detect. Some people want non-detect." Regardless, remediating soil to the state's highest standard allows the soil to be reused for myriad things.

What's in the Mix?

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