The Cayman Islands Water Authority has been concerned about the management of ash from burned Hurricane Ivan debris since last November, water resources engineer Hendrik van Genderen said this week.
The concern led the Water Authority to gather samples of ash at four different debris burn sites to test for contaminants on 31 January.
Those samples were sent for analysis to a laboratory certified by Unites States Environmental Protection Agency. The results were received about three months later, Mr. van Genderen said.
Two tests were conducted: one that analysed contaminant levels in the ash itself and another that analysed leachate from the ash.
All samples showed elevated levels of contaminants including chromium, benzene, lead and arsenic, with the latter present in all 11 samples.
The Water Authority outlined the findings and other environmental issues concerning the temporary hurricane-debris sites in a memorandum to the Cayman Islands Recovery Operation on 7 March.
With regard to the arsenic found, the Water Authority said it had not carried out research into its origin.
‘But based on a literature review, it is our view that there is a high possibility that it relates to the fact that pressure-treated wood was co-mingled with the debris that was burned,’ the memorandum stated.
Last week, Mr. van Genderen said MC Restoration, the company that got the hurricane debris-removal contract, was not solely responsible for burning debris.. Private citizens had also started fires.
Benjamin Bodden, the local debris-monitoring manager for James Lee Witt Associates, said pressure-treated wood was burned at various sites, including the MC Restoration site in Frank Sound.
James Lee Witt Associates was hired to oversee the hurricane-debris clean up. One of its tasks was to monitor MC Restoration’s activities and verify the amounts of debris it processed.
Mr. Bodden said the problem was more complicated than the burning of pressure-treated wood.
‘What you really have to look at is the way the debris was organised and classified at the location of pick-up.’
Mr. Bodden said the various kinds of debris should have been separated at its origin.
‘In the US, that is the way natural disaster-debris collection is done,’ he said. ‘If it’s not done that way, they don’t touch it.’
As a result of the method of collecting debris, MC Restoration was unable to sort the debris properly he said.
Mr. Bodden said large amounts of debris came in to the temporary-collection sites from sources other than MC Restoration.
‘At the Finch Drive site in West Bay, [MC Restoration] trucked in between 2,500 and 3,000 cubic yards of debris. Between 15,000 and 20,000 cubic yards were taken out.’
While at the collection sites, debris was crushed by bulldozers many times to compact it.
Once compacted, the debris could not be sorted to remove pressure-ttreated wood, Mr. Bodden said.
‘There’s no way to do it.’
Mr. Bodden said wood burning took place at some burn sites as much as two months prior to MC Restoration coming onto the scene.
Even at the well-run, pre-MC Restoration sites, Mr. Bodden said pressure-treated wood was not sorted from other burnable vegetation.
Mr. Bodden said he thought MC Restoration had performed well under circumstances which he called the worst-case scenario.
‘They did the best job they could do with what they had and what we gave them to work with,’ he said. ‘I think they did a tremendous job, based on what they had.’
Mr. Bodden said the country had to deal with the debris and that there was no way to avoid an environmental impact.
‘This (debris) doesn’t go away on its own. It’s not going to evaporate,’ he said. ‘We have to find a way to reduce it with the lowest environmental impact.’
Mr. Bodden pointed out that MC Restoration did not bring the arsenic to the island.
‘We (the Cayman public) brought this arsenic here and now we have to try to deal with it,’ he said. ‘The arsenic is going to stay here now, because no one is going to take it back.
‘You can’t blame anyone for this,’ he said. ‘The only person you could blame is Ivan.’
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