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Shaw involves community in environmental restoration process

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Kelsey Tucker
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. - --  For the 20th Fighter Wing, the mission always comes first - but the needs of the mission must be balanced with the responsibility to ensure impact on the environment is minimal.

To encourage community involvement in the environmental restoration process, the Department of Defense created Restoration Advisory Boards in 1994 to facilitate an open forum between the community, government agencies, tribes, and installation decision makers.

The RAB at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, focuses on areas where hazardous materials were improperly disposed of or where spilled contaminants - such as fuel, cleaning solvents, or other materials - have spread into the soil or groundwater, prompting action to be taken toward the cleanup of those contaminants.

At the time of the contaminants' discovery, most off-base residents were unaffected as the main supply of drinking water comes from the High Hills, north of the base and away from the contaminated groundwater. For those that were affected - those who had drilled their own private wells - the Air Force immediately reconnected lines to High Hills or installed carbon filters to ensure the supply of water remained clean. There was no impact to on-base residences because the base's supply system treats the water to remove any possible contamination prior to consumption.

Of the 123 total Shaw cleanup sites listed on the Hazardous Waste Management Permit, as updated in 2014, 102 have been fully cleaned or progressed far enough that contamination is well below regulatory levels.

"What's good about the main cleanup system here at Shaw Air Force Base is it's very efficient," said Juvenal Salomon, 20th Civil Engineer Squadron remedial project manager. "Since its installation in the late 1990s, the cleanup is continuously progressing, and at an accelerated rate."

One of the treatment systems implemented by Shaw is hydraulic control, or a 'pump and treat' system. This system removes contaminated water from the ground, treats the wather to remove all of the contaminants, and then re-injects clean water into the ground. This process helps replace the ground water removed and also accelerates the movement of the underground contaminant plume to the next extraction well where the process is repeated. Using this pump, treat, and re-injection methodology, a process that could have taken up to 200 years is accomplished in only 40 to 50.

The recent flooding had little impact on the progress of the cleanup, said Salomon, due to the fact that the contamination is l00 feet or more below the surface.

"The only immediate impact is that we shut off our treatment systems (on the surface) as a preventive measure during the storm and flooding to avoid or minimize any impacts to the control panels' electrical and electronic circuits," said Salomon. "We don't know actual post-storm impact on the surface equipment until a thorough electrical inspection gets completed and these systems have been re-started."

Though the cleanup of these sites remains a  main priority, the emergence of a new contaminant has the Air Force preparing to take action to protect human health. Shaw is one of over 80 bases involved in an Air Force-wide proactive study to determine a baseline assessment due to an increasing regulatory interest in the use of perfluorinated compounds. PFCs can be found in everyday products such as stick-resistant cookware or stain-resistant carpets; the Air Force uses PFCs as a firefighting foam in hangar fire suppression systems.

Due to the success of the Shaw AFB cleanup program, interest in the RAB program has significantly decreased and a decision was made to reduce meetings from bi-annually to annually.

"While there may be a decrease in (meeting) occurrence, there is not a decrease in transparency or our commitment," said Col. John Thomas, 20th Mission Support Group commander.

Information continues to be made available to the community.

The Air Force is committed to ensuring that the continued wellbeing of the environment and good stewardship of the local community go hand in hand with the necessity of carrying out the mission on a day-to-day basis.