Remediation - it's here to stay.

• Author: Jones, Patricia
• Position: Fuel contamination control in Alaska

Money, time, effort and, ultimately, a little help from Mother Nature are all part of mandated remediation. It's kind of like what your mother used to say: "If you make a mess, you clean it up."

Unfortunately there are hundreds of contaminated sites in Alaska. A lot of time, money and effort will be expended in the years ahead to remediate these sites.

When filling up a vehicle at the local gas station, most Alaskans don't consider the damage dribbling a few drops of fuel on the ground can cause. They simply insert the fuel nozzle, flick on the pump and watch the price register roll.

But, by necessity, most of the state's gas station operators and owners have become well-versed in the technical and sometimes confusing language of remediation, or cleanup of fuel contamination.

Design features that prevent fuel spills and control contamination are mandatory for businesses that build new service stations. Such environmental features can cause construction costs to increase by up to 50 percent, said Jeff Cook, vice president of external affairs and administration at MAPCO Alaska Petroleum.

"It's all for the stuff you don't see - underground tanks, monitoring systems," Cook said. "It adds significantly if you consider the immediate expenses, but if you look at it long term, it's not additional because you have the safety and protection."

State and federal laws require that all existing underground storage tanks used commercially, like those buried under gas stations, must be refitted with leak alarms, overflow containers, piping and corrosion-preventative materials. The deadline to complete such work, Dec. 22, 1998, is quickly approaching.

More than 3,600 underground fuel tanks in Alaska still need such remediation evaluation and action, said Steve Bainbridge, manager of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation's underground storage tank cleanup program.

Another 3,400 underground tanks have been dug up, evaluated and fixed since the state adopted the federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations in 1991, he said. Through his work, Bainbridge has overseen remediation of some of the state's dirtiest sites, and he knows there are many more areas that need attention.

"Fairbanks is one big contaminated site. There's free product (fuel) floating under the airport, along Airport Way, the railroad industrial area," Bainbridge said. "It gets in the water table and petroleum products are lighter than water. It's not going to sink and disappear."

Anchorage also holds a good number of fuel contamination sites, like the port area and near Anchorage International Airport, according to Bainbridge. "There's certainly a lot more service stations, but Anchorage does not have the shallow water table and sands and gravel that transmit pollution."

Unlike the Interior, soil in Anchorage contains more clay. It's compacted...