Residents and officials are still trying to flesh out the extent of a fuel leak on the Naval Base Point Loma that began in 1999, as well as results from the Navy’s mitigation and tracking efforts since taking the issue public in February.
Rough estimates have indicated that the mass, which lies within 340 yards of San Diego Bay, could be as large as 1.5 million gallons.
Though the Navy has yet to get its arms completely around the problem, demand for any available information is high. In response, the second townhall meeting in three months will be held on Thursday, July 6, at 7 p.m. at the Portuguese SES Hall, 2818 Avenida De Portugal.
District 2 Councilman Kevin Faulconer will moderate the discussion and has emphasized that the public remain informed of what is taking place just a stone’s throw from many La Playa homes.
“Any member of the public will be able to ask a question and the Navy will answer it directly,” Faulconer said.
The base’s commanding officer and go-to man on the subject, Capt. Mark Patton, will field most queries and plans to present a new map of the plume, as well as recent and extensive site characterization data that have provided a “much grater fidelity of what’s underground.”
Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego) and representatives from the Regional Water Quality Control Board will also attend. In Congress, Davis has advocated that the Navy take quick action to replace the old tanks and successfully inserted language stating such in the National Defense Authorization Act on May 3. The board serves as the state regulatory agency that has been monitoring the Navy’s cleanup progress with no complaints of inaction as of yet.
Prior to the public gathering, Patton will meet with leaders from the Peninsula Community Planning Board, Point Loma Association and Point Loma Chamber of Commerce in an attempt to disseminate information more regularly to residents. The June 30 meeting will be the first of many organized by the District 2 office and will tentatively take place on a monthly basis.
“It’s been a two-track effort to continually involve the public in as many different ways as we can,” Faulconer said.
Environmental chemist John Adriany will join the community leaders in meeting with Patton to glean more information on the plume and potential vapors, his area of expertise. Adriany has 25 years experience consulting on subsurface contamination of gasoline and solvents and is currently advising the local planning board’s environmental toxins committee.
“Vapor leaks are now an issue [to consider] and probably have been for about four years,” he said.
Because vapors can impact human health, the Navy has placed investigation wells throughout its property to monitor possible escapes, though none have been detected yet. And after months of permitting, the Navy will soon drill the first two wells on private property in La Playa.
Adriany said the spill at the Point Loma base is mostly diesel fuel, which is not as volatile as gasoline, though all fuels contain a volatile portion of oil that evaporates at low vapor pressure.
Vapors typically rise, but can also travel horizontally toward sandy or gravelly soils if they form underground. Often, soils can slow the rate of migration, or even inhibit it, he continued.
But Adriany said it is too early to comment on the possibility of vapors on the base, as the exact location of the plume is still being determined. He added that he trusts the Navy is taking all the proper steps expected of them in this situation.
“We’re somewhat in the dark and we’re looking to see some light from the Navy on what’s been done and what needs to be done out there,” he said.
Another issue of concern for the peninsula planning board is the demolition of a historic property in preparation for the new tank system. Board member Katheryn Rhodes said at a recent meeting that the 1908 Spanish Colonial house should be preserved, despite Patton’s claims that it is “structurally unsound.”
Patton said that the house, called Quarters A, has been unoccupied since 1997 and will have to be removed in order to place new mega-tanks further away from the federal property line.
“We have initiated action in order to properly record the historic aspects of that building and then demolish it, as well as an adjacent building, Building 2, which was a warehouse, in support of project P401,” he said.
The Navy is currently pursuing a replacement of the 27 aboveground and 23 underground tanks with 10 state-of-the-art mega-tanks. As one of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves, the submarine base stores roughly 42 million gallons of fuel on site for the Navy, Army, Marine Corps and Air Force.
Patton said that $135 million has already been programmed for the project, $10 million more than initial estimates presented in March. The first dollars are scheduled to be released in October 2007, and should all of the prerequisites be completed on time, construction could begin in early 2008.
In 1999, fuel began dripping from the bottom of one of the aboveground tanks. The petroleum continued to seep through the dry, rocky ground until it hit the water table 50 feet below, where it spread laterally.
Sensors alerted officials to the first leak in 2000 and the Navy took one tank offline. Two more leaks were subsequently discovered in 2002 and 2003.
For five years, the Navy has collaborated with the state and local governments to extract the fuel and water mixture from the ground. Each week the Navy removes 45,000 gallons of liquid from the affected area. Roughly 128,000 gallons of actual fuel have been pumped out of the plume to date, along with a much greater amount of water, which is extracted from the mixture and sent into the sewer system. The recovered fuel is later resold and reused.