The Bethel Air Force Station is one of numerous former military sites in Alaska that still contain untold amounts of hazardous waste. But this summer, the decades-long cleanup of the site on the outskirts of the Western Alaska city took a step toward a greener future.
Recent visitors to the site of the old Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) headquarters building at the end of BIA Road in Bethel may have noticed closure signs warning people of exposure to dust from cement crushing.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) owns the site, which at one point was part of a much larger complex operated by the U.S. Air Force.
Robert McGinn, an environmental compliance coordinator for USFWS, said that the dust contains silica, the particulate matter that makes up concrete.
“When they’re crushing, visitors should stay away from that area due to vehicle hazard and because of potential silica exposure,” McGinn said. “Silica is considered a known carcinogen when it’s fine dust and it’s in the air. Once it hits the soil it would be wetted, or it becomes mixed in with soil, and it would not be a hazard at that time.”
McGinn said that crews are expected to finish the crushing by the end of October 2024, but that it is still a good idea for people to err on the side of caution when visiting the nearby area.
“I would say, I’d stay as far away from the area as possible,” McGinn said.
In recent years, thousands of pounds of materials containing highly hazardous polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and asbestos were removed from the site and shipped out of Bethel. Both materials were once commonplace in building construction and in numerous products in the United States, but were clamped down on by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency beginning in the 1970s.
This summer, McGinn said that the last of the PCBs and asbestos were removed from the site through close cooperation with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC), following strict guidelines set by the state.
“We are also following up by taking soil samples at the slab area for anything that would have been of concern, that includes PCBs and asbestos, to make sure that there [are] no additional hazards,” McGinn said.
While the most dangerous part of the cleanup process is complete, McGinn said that the next step could take multiple years.
“The next phase of this site is to remediate a fuel oil spill that happened. In 1992, approximately 106,000 gallons of fuel oil was spilled at this site. The Air Force cleaned up some of the fuel oil, but because the building was present that could not be cleaned up,” McGinn said.
Driving out BIA Road is a tour through the decaying relics of the city’s complex Cold War history. The massive White Alice antennas and much of the infrastructure installed when the area was controlled by the U.S. Air Force are long gone, but large amounts of hazardous chemicals are believed to remain in the soil.
Keeping Bethel residents away from the area over the decades has not been easy. The road that leads there juts out 2.5 miles onto the tundra and provides prime access for dog walkers, berry pickers, bird hunters, overland travelers, and late-night revelers.
The silica dust currently being generated at the old BIA site is undoubtedly hazardous to breathe. But silica is not in itself hazardous to consume, and is naturally occurring in foods such as green beans, bananas, and brown rice.
While silica is therefore unlikely to contaminate berries in the nearby area, the effects of the unrecovered diesel fuel and other contaminants could come to light as the soil remediation is completed. In 1999, an analysis of crowberries conducted at the site by ADEC found no evidence of diesel contamination.
McGinn said that at some point, the land containing the old BIA site will be transferred from USFWS to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC), something that has been in the works for decades.
“It will be turned over to YKHC as part of an agreement that was signed back in the 1990s,” McGinn said. “It was going to be turned over back in 1992, but two weeks prior to the transfer is when the building caught fire, and then that transfer never occurred.”
The asbestos-laden building also caught fire in 2018 and was left to burn out over the course of multiple days by then-Bethel Fire Chief Bill Howell, who decided that was the safest option.
McGinn said that the clean concrete being crushed at the site will be recycled at the request of the BIA, potentially for use in roads and foundations around town.
