Hill will remove, replace toxic soil

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Hill Air Force Base will remove and replace contaminated soil at dozens of on-base homes that have tested positive for polychlorinated biphenyls, including one home that environmental managers have declared uninhabitable.

Base officials were unsure how much the project would cost, saying testing to identify other locations of contamination is ongoing.

Hill environmental manager Steve Hicken said the base has agreed with Environmental Protection Agency monitors to replace soil at any location that tests above one part per million.

Scores of soil samples from dozens of residences on the southwest corner of the base have tested at that level for presence of the chemicals, also known as PCBs. Testing began last winter.

In one location, the inspectors found PCBs at 270 parts per million - hundreds of times higher than what is considered safe by the base's own environmental risk assessors.

Both duplex apartments of that building will be vacant until contaminated soil has been removed, Hicken said.

"We'll be going down several feet, then bringing in clean backfill," he said.

Health effects associated with PCB exposure include acne-like skin conditions in adults and neurobehavioral and immunological changes in children, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Base managers have stressed, however, that they believe the levels of PCBs found at Hill would only be dangerous if the soil were ingested or the exposure were extremely prolonged. And they noted that samples taken at hundreds of locations showed little or no contamination.

Hill first found the chemicals, which once were used as coolants and lubricants but have been banned since 1977, during routine soil testing in December and January while doing routine testing in preparation for a renovation of about 50 duplex-style housing units.

In a more comprehensive round of testing of surface soil samples in the same housing area, including several taken at the location in which the highest PCB concentrations were first discovered, officials were unable to replicate the earlier levels.

But in his letter to residents, base commander Col. Scott Chambers said a third round of testing had revealed "the highest levels of PCBs in the soil we have seen since we began our sampling effort."

mlaplante@sltrib.com