The cleanup of Skagway’s contaminated ore basin begins

 

After more than 30 years of negotiation and study, White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad has begun the process of cleaning up the lead and zinc ore that have left Skagway’s Ore Basin contaminated. 

On Thursday afternoon a marine construction crew was making its final preparations to begin a dredging project underneath the ore loader next to Skagway’s Ore Dock. The process should remove between 3,000 and 7,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment including lead and zinc ore concentrates. 

State environmental regulators estimated in 2014 that over 200,000 cubic yards will most likely need to be removed before the project is completed. The department first approached White Pass about cleanup in 1990. 

White Pass executive Tyler Rose says it’s been a long process getting to this point.

“2018, was when this really started to move forward with the new ownership. And it’s been, you know, the driving force behind that, and being able to get here,” said Rose.

In 2018 the Canadian-owned leisure corporation ClubLink and its parent company TWC sold White Pass to a group led by Ketchikan’s Survey Point Holdings. Other major players in that group are Carnival Cruise Lines and Carrix, which was recently acquired by the private equity firm Blackstone.

Rose credits Survey Point Holding’s president Bob Berto for pushing this project along. 

White Pass has contracted Anchorage-based Turnagain Marine Construction to spearhead the dredging. They will be working off a barge near the ore loader. The process will utilize a crane with a clamshell attachment that will dip into the sediment on the harbor floor. Each scoop will be brought directly onto the barge.

“It’ll be de-watered and mixed and then put into the Super Sacks. We go through the process because there’s going to be testing of it at that point to make sure it meets the requirements before it’s able to move,” said Rose.

Once the dredging is completed, clean sand will be poured on top of the dredged area and the contaminated soils will be brought to Washington state where they will be disposed of in a solid waste landfill.

Regulators from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation call this is a good first step.

“What we have is a interim removal action, trying to get some metals contaminated sediment out of the basin,” said Nick Waldo, the project manager in the DEC’s contaminated sites division. He also said that White Pass isn’t the only party that is legally responsible for the cleanup.

“White Pass and Yukon (Route Railroad) has received a potentially responsible party letter, so has the municipality of Skagway and so has AIDEA,” said Waldo.

AIDEA is the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. The state-run investment authority owns the ore loader and ore building on the Ore Dock. And is the subletter that helped bring lead and zinc ore concentrates to Skagway from Canadian mining operations in decades past.

White Pass claims that one of the options for controlling the contamination was to allow drifting silt to cover up the contamination site. The company says they are doing the dredging voluntarily as a service to the community.

However, Waldo says that the DEC hasn’t made any demands because forward progress was being made, if the project had stalled, they would have required concrete action. He also stated that the contamination wasn’t solely contained beneath the layer of natural drifting sediment.

“A 2018 risk assessment that found some metals contamination in the tissues of the sea life,” said Waldo.

That report states that the contamination bio-accumulates in sea life. That means it works its way up from micro-invertebrates to larger animals that eat them like crabs and fish, and then continues into whatever animals eat them.

Environmentalists say that’s concerning. Lynn Canal Conservation’s executive director Jessica Plachta says she worries about the health of anyone who eats seafood from the Skagway Harbor.

“The health of the marine environment and the health of the people who eat from these waters is at risk from decades of heavy metals pollution and decades of inaction. This cleanup just scratches the surface, but it is a beginning. I salute the people of Skagway for insisting on cleanup,” said Plachta.

White Pass says this phase of the project should be completed by the end of this month and says it will not interfere with freight from barge shipments.