The latest news:
In June 2006, the Cuyahoga County Soil & Water Conservation District (CCSWCD) published its Request for Proposals to find a company to conduct environmental tests (Phase I and Phase II) to determine the level of contamination in the soil and the risk posed to the public at Dike 14. The Soil District will select a firm in September.
In May 2006, the CCSWCD — acting as fiscal agent for the efforts to advance Dike 14 as a natural park— received a USEPA Brownfields Assessment Fund grant of $200,000 to perform a Phase I and Phase II environmental assessment and risk analysis for Dike 14.
The Dike 14 risk assessment study is scheduled for August 2007 and will be based on non-residential (commercial-industrial) land use—the ingestion of water is not being considered.
Depending on the results of the preliminary risk assessment, different engineering, institutional controls and/or active remediation could be required. The remedial action plan is scheduled for September and October 2007, but it may be completed sooner.
Background:
Efforts to create a nature preserve at Dike 14 date back to the 1980s when a volunteer group called the Cleveland Waterfront Coalition began advocating for the former dredge disposal site to be converted to a park. Since then, groups such as the Dike 14 Environmental Education Collaborative and the Dike 14 Nature Preserve Committee were established to work on the cause.
At issue:
In March 2006, The City of Cleveland formally approved the Dike 14 Public Natural Area Master Plan which calls for maintaining and restoring most of the existing greenspace, and adding amenities such as a bird observation tower, hiking trails, and a picnic area on site.
The first step is to conduct soil testing to assess the risk that then-contaminated soils dumped at Dike 14 might pose to the public. The USEPA brownfields grant will arrive in October 2006 and will be used to look at records of what was dumped at Dike 14 and to conduct soil testing throughout the entire site.
The focus is on contact risk, says CCSWCD's Jan Rybka. "Who would be coming down here, and who is at risk for exposure? The casual hiker, the dog walker, maintenance worker and a child are all different."
The challenge comes in matching potential risk with the public access outlined in the plan. How much contact people have with the soil will help determine the level of remediation needed.
"You have a lot of people interested in the site for a lot of different reasons," Rybka says. "Plans can always be modified. First, we have to find out what (contaminants) we have, because maybe we can only proceed with one quarter of the site at a time. But, we're keeping the momentum going."
As of June 2007, the historical analytical data identified the chemicals of concern (COCs) and include volatile organic chemicals, semi volatile organic chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons, metals and cyanide.
The maximum concentrations exceed the current soil standards for residential land use: benzo pyrene, benzo anthracene, dibenz anthracene, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, PCBs and petroleum hydrocarbons (as oil & grease).
Based on the prior sediment sampling data, PCBs, PAHs and other Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) metals were selected as the primary COCs.
Resources and contacts:
Read the Testing and Assessment proposal
Leave a comment here or email CCSWCD's Jan Rybka
