MC Restoration owner Tom Moffitt said his company did its best to separate pressure treated wood from other vegetative materials before burning, but admitted some of the arsenic-coated wood was burned during the clean-up process.
The Government recently began a clean-up of an estimated 14,000 – 18,000 cubic yards of ash contaminated by arsenic and other heavy metals, most likely a result of burning pressure treated wood.
‘Every attempt was made on our part to separate it,’ Mr. Moffitt said.
MC Restoration had previously denied burning any pressure treated wood, but backed away from that statement after Benjamin Bodden, a representative from James Lee Witt Associates, said he thought the company had.
‘I’ve spoken with Benji about this, and with us accepting debris from everywhere, there’s not a doubt that we burned some pressure treated wood,’ Mr. Moffitt said. ‘But what we burned that came from the tub grinder was purely vegetation.’
The Water Authority, took the view in a 7 March memorandum to the Cayman Islands Recovery Operation that there was a high probability that the origin of the arsenic in the ash related to the fact that pressure treated wood, which is coated with chromated copper arsenic- was co-mingled with other debris before burning.
Because of the potential threat to groundwater, he Water Authority is the regulatory body that has taken the lead in the ash management issue, although the Department of Environmental Health and the Department of the Environment are also involved.
Mr. Bodden said the underlying problem was caused by improper sorting of hurricane debris at the source, something that occurred for more than two months before MC Restoration received the debris-removal contract from the government.
MC Restoration hired Robert Neff, a project environmental scientist from the United States, who worked closely with the Water Authority, to monitor the environmental issues in the clean-up process.
In a 23 March memorandum he wrote in response to the earlier one of the Water Authority, Mr. Neff suggested some of the arsenic at the burn sites could have been from arsenic in the vegetation itself.
‘Although some of the CCA wood may have been burned, the majority of burned material on the island was natural vegetation,’ he wrote. ‘Naturally occurring arsenic and chromium found in natural vegetation would be concentrated by burning.’
MC Restoration conducted baseline soil sampling of its Frank Sound debris processing property on 3 March, prior to beginning any operations there.
‘The soil samples indicated the presence of arsenic, cadmium, chromium and lead,’ Mr. Neff reported. ‘Only arsenic and chromium were above Florida environmental standards.’
The Water Authority’s water resources engineer Hendrik van Genderen, confirmed that there are background levels of arsenic in soil samples taken
Mr. van Genderen said wood chips from local trees were also tested to see if they contained arsenic, but that no detectable amounts were found.
However, ash from local trees has not been tested for arsenic, Mr. van Genderen said.
Although the Water Authority was concerned about the management of the debris ash from at least last November, there was very little attention given to that issue in the contract between MC Restoration and the Cayman Islands Government.
In Schedule 1 of the contract, however, under the heading Temporary Landfill Management, the parties to the contract appear to acknowledge a pre-existing problem.
‘Given the existing conditions of the temporary disposal sites, it is expected that these sites have been environmentally impacted,’ the contract stated.
‘MC Restoration (Cayman) LTD will handle all hurricane debris in an environmentally sensitive manner in agreement with J.L. Witt Associates, LLC, and CIG (the Cayman Islands Government) will be indemnified of all environmental impacts.’
The contract seemed to leave open, however, the issue of the disposal of hazardous wastes.
‘Upon completion of work at the temporary disposal sites, disposal of the non-burnable C&D (construction and demolition debris) and hazardous materials shall be negotiated with CIG on a per cost basis,’ it stated.
In his 23 March memorandum, Mr. Neff indicated that everyone should be looking forward on the ash issue because of the circumstances of pre-compromised burning sites.
‘MC Restoration maintains that the proper management of the ash should be the focus of future discussions, not responsibility,’ he stated.
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