| Action Date |
Action |
Description |
DEC Staff |
| 7/19/1988 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = FI - Field Inspection (General)). J. Hayden met with UNOCAL on site. |
Jim Hayden |
| 7/21/1988 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = SI - Site Investigation). B. Ashton drafted hydrogeologic study plan for J. Hayden. |
Jim Hayden |
| 9/21/1988 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = RAPR - Remedial Action Plan Review (CS)). Draft hydrologic characterization plan by UNOCAL. |
Former Staff |
| 3/23/1989 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = RAPR - Remedial Action Plan Review (CS)). ENSR Consulting and Engineering prepared a Draft Work Plan and QA/QC Plan. The plans were approved on 4/12/89. |
Former Staff |
| 4/4/1989 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = SI - Site Investigation). Hydrogeological Evaluation Studies began on 4/4/89 and consisted of 19 soil borings and 14 monitoring wells. Groundwater characteristics were established and samples of soil and groundwater were collected. Groundwater in the water-table aquifer beneath the site contained elevated concentrations of metals, nitrogen compounds, and 1,1,1-trichloroethane. Several water samples contained arsenic, chromium, and lead in concentrations exceeding the primary drinking water standards of 50 ppb for each metal. Elevated ammonia and nitrate concentrations were found in groundwater over most of the site. 1,1,1-TCA concentrations ranged from 10 ppb to 3,700 ppb. |
Former Staff |
| 12/13/1990 |
Site Ranked Using the AHRM |
Initial ranking. |
Former Staff |
| 5/2/1991 |
Site Number Identifier Changed |
Old Reckey 19882X0918305. Kenai Special Project code eliminated. |
Former Staff |
| 1/1/1992 |
Site Added to Database |
Ammonia and other substances, including arsenic. |
Former Staff |
| 3/5/1993 |
Site Ranked Using the AHRM |
Site re-ranked. Surface Water Environments and Observed Environmental Impact Values changed from site managers submitted ranking form. |
Former Staff |
| 6/9/1993 |
Site Ranked Using the AHRM |
Site re-ranked. Population Density Index Value changed to 5. |
Former Staff |
| 9/21/1994 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = RAPR - Remedial Action Plan Review (CS)). A hydrogeological report for the facility was reviewed by department staff. Comments regarding the report will be sent to the RP. |
Former Staff |
| 9/21/1994 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = RAPR - Remedial Action Plan Review (CS)). A remedial action plan for the treatment/disposal of contaminated soil was reviewed by department staff. Comments on the proposed cold asphalt process was provided to the RP. |
Former Staff |
| 9/22/1994 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = FI - Field Inspection (General)). A field inspection was conducted by departmental staff for purposes of inspecting the stockpiles of contaminated soils and their containment areas. |
Former Staff |
| 10/12/1994 |
Update or Other Action |
(Old R:Base Action Code = RAPR - Remedial Action Plan Review (CS)). A plan for the disposal/treatment of contaminated soil was reviewed by department staff. Comments on the proposed cold asphalt process were provided to the RP. The plan was not approved due to cold weather constraints on the cold asphalt process. |
Former Staff |
| 1/3/1995 |
Update or Other Action |
Both district and regional staff met with the state's term contractor to discuss the risk assessment submitted by UNOCAL Chemicals Division for this site. |
Monica English |
| 2/21/1995 |
Update or Other Action |
Departmental staff received a Risk Assessment Review report from the state's Term Contractor. This report was reviewed and staff are trying to resolve some of the questions raised by the Term Contractor. |
Monica English |
| 3/30/1995 |
Update or Other Action |
Departmental staff continue to review comments drafted the state's Term Contractor for the Risk Assessment submitted by the RP. Due to the volume of information collected over the length of this project, it has become a time consuming endeavor. |
Monica English |
| 5/5/1995 |
Update or Other Action |
Departmental staff drafted comments / concerns with the risk assessment submitted by UNOCAL's consultant for groundwater contamination at the fertilizer plant. These comments were then forwarded to the department's risk assessment staff, Linda Himmelbauer. |
Monica English |
| 10/20/1999 |
Cleanup Plan Approved |
Work plan for installation of a pilot test study for remediation of ammonia contaminated soils approved. |
Don Fritz |
| 10/15/2001 |
Site Characterization Workplan Approved |
Work plan to install 7 additional monitor wells and collect additional samples approved. |
Don Fritz |
| 2/5/2004 |
Update or Other Action |
Staff reviewed an Agrium submittal regarding their General Effluent System Repair activities. |
Don Fritz |
| 3/25/2004 |
Proposed Plan |
Approved a proposed plan to install additional monitor wells |
Don Fritz |
| 5/25/2004 |
Update or Other Action |
File number assigned and entered into the Fileroom DB and CS DB. |
Alyce Hughey |
| 7/12/2004 |
Update or Other Action |
Contaminated sites staff reviewed a work plan to implement a vapor extraction/air sparging pilot study at the Agrium Kenai Nitrogen Plant. Staff provided review comments to the consultant for incorporation into a resubmitted work plan. |
Don Fritz |
| 7/14/2004 |
Proposed Plan |
Contaminated sites staff approved a work plan to implement a vapor extraction/air sparging pilot study at the Agrium Kenai Nitrogen Plant. |
Don Fritz |
| 8/29/2005 |
Proposed Plan |
Contaminated sites staff approved a work plan to install several additional wells at the Agrium facility in order to better understand contaminant migration in the confined and semi-confined aquifers. |
Don Fritz |
| 9/26/2005 |
Proposed Plan |
Contaminated sites staff approved a work plan to install an additional well on Conoco Phillips property in order to better understand contaminant migration in the unconfined aquifer. |
Don Fritz |
| 10/28/2005 |
GIS Position Updated |
Using the Site Map from a Work Plan Hydrogeological Evaluation Project Unocal Chemicals, from ENSR Consulting and Engineering, dated March 1989, in conjunction with TopoZone Pro and the KPB Parcel Lookup, entered the coordinates for this site. Metadata includes No Topo Basemap, TopoZone Pro Street Maps, Black and White Aerial Photo, on a Medium Size Map, View Scale 1:24,000, Coordinate Datum NAD83. High degree of confidence in accuracy of location. |
Alyce Hughey |
| 2/1/2006 |
Meeting or Teleconference Held |
Contaminated Sites staff met with Agrium staff at the Agrium Kenai Nitrogen Operations facility in Nikiski. Contaminated Sites staff was provided an update of assessment activities that have occurred at the facility over the last several months. |
Don Fritz |
| 2/22/2006 |
Site Characterization Report Approved |
Staff reviewed the Plant 5 Leak Elimination Project report. Ongoing assessment activities included the installation of numerous additional monitor wells across the facility. One monitor well (MW-39) in close proximity to the granulation building encountered significant levels of urea and ammonia. The elevated concentrations depicted that the potential for ongoing releases from current plant operations was occurring. Agrium staff initiated the Plant 5 leak elimination project in order to identify and eliminate all sources of releases. Several sources of leaks were identified, and corrective actions were taken. Urea concentrations in the groundwater have rapidly declined from 92,400 on July 28, 2005 to 1,689 mg/kg on October 6, 2005. |
Don Fritz |
| 2/23/2006 |
Site Characterization Report Approved |
Contaminated Sites staff reviewed a January 2006 Site Investigation Report prepared by Agrium U.S., Inc. for the Kenai Nitrogen Operations. Ongoing assessment activities have identified urea and ammonia plumes in the unconfined and semi-confined aquifers which extend from the facility to Cook Inlet and onto adjacent ConocoPhillips property. Site assessment activities identified significant ongoing releases at one of the plants at the facility. A leak elimination project was undertaken by Agrium staff to identify and eliminate several sources of releases. |
Don Fritz |
| 11/8/2006 |
Update or Other Action |
Contaminated sites staff provided review comments to Agrium staff regarding a draft groundwater remedial action plan. The plan identifies preventing future releases and natural attenuation as the preferred option for mitigating/remediating Agrium's groundwater contamination issues regarding the releases of urea at the site. Contaminated sites staff reviewed a work plan to evaluate leaks to the general effluent system at the Agrium facility. Agrium plans to implement the plan while production operations are shut down this winter |
Don Fritz |
| 1/10/2007 |
Cleanup Plan Approved |
On December 7, 2006, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Contaminated Sites Program (ADEC), received the December 2006 Groundwater Remedial Action Plan (hereinafter Plan) for the Agrium Kenai Nitrogen Operations Plant. This Plan was prepared for Agrium by Jené Worley (Cook Inlet Environmental). In addition, on December 14, 2006, the ADEC also received your December 13th letter pertaining to the above referenced spill.
Upon reviewing this Plan, the July 10, 2006 Groundwater Modeling Report for the Agrium U.S. Inc. Kenai Nitrogen Operations Plant, as well as other pertinent material from our administrative file for this facility, ADEC agrees with Agrium’s request to implement monitored natural attenuation (MNA) as the preferred remedial alternative for this site. Please note that our approval of this Plan is subject to site specific conditions which must be complied with in order for this approval to remain valid, and that this decision is relevant only to contamination associated with historical releases of urea. Future releases of urea, in addition to past and future releases of other hazardous substances are not included in this decision.
|
Don Fritz |
| 5/14/2008 |
Exposure Tracking Model Ranking |
Initial ranking with ETM completed. |
Don Fritz |
| 1/14/2010 |
Update or Other Action |
Phone conversations with Jene and with Mike Harper regarding sulfolane/sulfolene usage at the facility, with regards to discovery at Flint Hills |
Don Fritz |
| 3/9/2011 |
Site Characterization Workplan Approved |
Contaminated Sites staff approved a work plan to undertake background metals (arsenic is COC) sampling., The work plan depicts that Agrium U.S. Inc. may seek less stringent cleanup levels for metals under 18 AAC 75.340(h)(1), and may utilize these alternate cleanup levels during potential excavation activities in 2011. |
Don Fritz |
| 11/16/2011 |
Update or Other Action |
Site transferred from Don Fritz to Peter Campbell per Paul Horwath. |
Alyce Hughey |
| 6/16/2014 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Groundwater monitoring was conducted in July, August and September of 2013, in accordance to the Agrium Kenai Nitrogen Operations Remedial Action Plan dated December 2006. The ammonia and urea plumes have decreased and leveled off, with the plums migrating down-gradient. The nitrate and nitrite trends within the plums show spikes in down-gradient wells, with all wells showing an increase in nitrate and nitrite in 2012, then a decrease in 2013. In October of 2008 the groundwater cleanup standard for arsenic was lowered from 50 ug/L to 10 ug/L. The arsenic concentrations have attenuated, and it is anticipated that the cleanup timeframe will be extended by at least three years for arsenic. High carbonate levels are present due to aerobic microbial processes in which urea is hydrolyzed to form ammonia, carbonate and elevated pH. These high carbonate levels discharge to the sea water that results in large slab-like rocks forming on the beach. Due to the carbonate levels between 2012 and 2013 no large slab-like rocks formed on the beach, therefore beach dredging was not conducted in 2013. The temperature within the upper confined aquifer and the semi-confined aquifer have reduced since the facility stopped operations in 2008. The rise in groundwater temperature was due to steam leaking from reclaim systems from Plants 2 and 5. It is expected that the groundwater temperature will continue to drop since the facility is no longer in operation. |
Peter Campbell |
| 11/25/2016 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
ADEC Received the 2016 Groundwater Monitoring Report from Cook Inlet Environmental. Preliminary review of report. |
Paul Horwath |
| 9/5/2018 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Review the 2017 Groundwater Monitoring Report. The urea contaminant plumes have increased in the past year in both the unconfined and semi-confined aquifers beneath the site. Residual urea has apparently been mobilized by infiltration and changes in the water table. Nitrogen has continued to degrade in the groundwater since the plants closing in the semi confined aquifer, while increasing in the unconfined aquifer. This indicates that nitrification is still active in the unconfined aquifer, and the plume is moving west towards the beach. The arsenic, pH and ammonia plumes have attenuated and now meet the Alaska Water Quality Standards at the beach. Carbonate concentrations have increased in the southern unconfined aquifer plume but have decreased or remained stable elsewhere on site and continue to migrate with groundwater westward to the beach. No new carbonate concretions were formed on the beach between 2016 and 2017. |
Peter Campbell |
| 5/29/2019 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Review Work Plan for Well Replacement (May 23, 2019) for five monitoring wells that were lost from the beach high tide line due to storm damage. In addition, monitoring well MW-9 will be replaced due to a failed annular seal. |
Peter Campbell |
| 10/7/2019 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Ammonia and urea plumes are stable and decreasing in the unconfined aquifer. Ammonia is increasing in the down-gradient wells as the plume migrates through this area. There was no detectable urea in the semi-confined aquifer indicating that attenuation may be complete in this area. Nitrate and nitrite have shown generally stable trends over the past five years indicating that the ammonia degradation processes may have slowed with the attenuation of high ammonia levels. |
Peter Campbell |
| 3/6/2020 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Ammonia and urea concentrations increased in several wells, nitrate and nitrite decreased, possibly correlating with an increased water level at the site. Five cubic yards of carbonate beach rock was removed and stockpiled behind the break wall. |
Peter Campbell |
| 8/31/2021 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Reviewed the 2020 Groundwater Monitoring Report. 1356 mg/l ammonia discharging on the beach. 1 mg/l can be toxic to marine life. Ammonia is stable to decreasing in the northern unconfined aquifer plume. The ammonia plume is migrating through the semi-confined aquifer. Urea attenuation s nearly complete in the semi-confined aquifer. Nitrate and nitrite concentrations are stable over the past six years which indicates that the ammonia degradation process may have slowed with the attenuation of high ammonia levels.
The hydrographs for the unconfined aquifer indicate that the water elevation trend has increased 1.5 feet.
1 cubic yard of beach rock was removed.
|
Peter Campbell |
| 6/10/2022 |
Workplan Requested |
On May 26, 2022 ADEC met with Nutrien and their consultant in a phone conference. ADEC was informed of a large scale biosparge remediation project that has been in operation since January 2022. ADEC informed Nutrien and their consultant, Cook Inlet Environmental, that an approved work plan would be required for the project. |
Peter Campbell |
| 7/14/2022 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Review and approve 2022 Biosparge Work Plan R1. The bio sparge plan did not address impacts to the unsaturated zone in either of the aquifers. As there is a drought in the area at this time, a rising water table may mobilize additional ammonia in the aquifer. I encouraged Nutrien to consider the implications of this for long term site closure issues. |
Peter Campbell |
| 8/18/2022 |
Document, Report, or Work plan Review - other |
Review 2021 Groundwater Monitoring Report. An unusual concentration of urea was noted in monitoring well MW-38R. This well is close to the beach. This anomalous concentration should be noted and followed. |
Peter Campbell |
| 2/27/2024 |
Long Term Monitoring Workplan or Report Review |
Review 2022 Groundwater Monitoring Report. Ten new monitoring wells and thirteen new air sparge wells were installed in the southern plume area during summer 2022. Baseline performance monitoring for the newly installed system was conducted concurrently with annual groundwater monitoring in June 2022, and baseline monitoring results have been included in this annual groundwater report.
Detection monitoring consists of sampling within contaminant source areas to assess the status of ongoing or new releases.
Urea-N hydrolysis and ammonia-N nitrification are aerobic processes. The limiting factor for the microbial degradation of these contaminants is the concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) in groundwater. Assessment monitoring uses both DO and ORP to assess conditions which limit ammonia-N and urea.
Nitrate-N and nitrite-N are present in KNO groundwater due to a two-step microbial process where ammonia-N is nitrified under aerobic conditions to form nitrite, followed by the formation of nitrate. No marine water quality standards currently exist for nitrite or nitrate, and these parameters assess the progression of ammonia-N and urea-N degradation.
Arsenic naturally occurs in soil and groundwater at the KNO site. Elevated pH, associated with urea-N and ammonia-N releases, has increased the solubility of naturally occurring arsenic in aquifer sands. This has resulted in elevated arsenic levels in groundwater. Two arsenic plumes which correspond to urea-N and ammonia-N releases are present in both the UA and SCA. The marine AWQS standard for arsenic is 36 µg/L and the marine AWQS for pH is 6.5 to 8.5 standard units (su). All beach wells show arsenic levels below the 36 µg/L indicating that the arsenic plumes at KNO no longer pose a risk to aquatic receptors in Cook Inlet.
Urea-N hydrolysis forms ammonium carbonate accompanied by an increase in pH. Accordingly, urea-N degradation has resulted in elevated carbonate ion plumes throughout the site. Carbonate rich groundwater discharging sub-tidally from the SCA into Cook Inlet previously precipitated in the presence of calcium rich seawater. At one time, this process formed slab-like rock concretions which had a potential to interfere with local fishing activities. This process no longer appears to occur. Current background carbonate levels range from 92-219 mg/L in the UA and 190-237 mg/L in the SCA.
Nitrate-N and nitrite-N show stable trends over the past six years indicating that ammonia-N degradation processes may have slowed with the attenuation of high ammonia-N levels.
|
Peter Campbell |
