JUNEAU -- In Wrangell, the state has stepped in to clean up a badly contaminated junkyard after federal assistance fell through.
The Southeast island town of 2,400 couldn't afford the cleanup and had originally looked to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for help.
"We'd been working with them over 3 to 4 years and they did an assessment that found very high levels of lead and some other things," said Carol Rushmore, Wrangell's planning and zoning administrator.
The former Byford Salvage junkyard for decades accepted cars, drums and various other items, including batteries and tires, before going out of business in the 1990s. A new owner shipped out cars and metal and tried to clean up the site but failed, and has since vanished.
But just as Wrangell was counting on a federal grant, disaster struck the EPA in Colorado. A cleanup contractor working on an abandoned contaminated mine there breached a waste dam and released toxic water into a river. The waste turned a river there into the color of hot mustard and drew national attention -- and EPA money.
"They had some funding for the cleanup, but then that disaster hit in Colorado and they pulled the funding," Rushmore said.
On Friday, the state Department of Environmental Conservation stepped in and committed as much as $4 million from its Oil and Hazardous Substance Release Prevention and Response Fund to clean the site.
In addition to the lead and other metals, the site has PCBs, a contaminant from older electrical transformers that can produce the toxin dioxin, and hydrocarbons, said the DEC's Bruce Wanstall.
The town, which foreclosed on the abandoned property in 2009, has put up signs to prevent entry, but Wanstall said contamination threatens to move off the site by draining to a Zimovia Strait beach used for clamming.
The state fund can be used for sites that pose an imminent threat.
The city and the EPA praised the state's help Friday.
"Alaska came through in a big way," said Glen Wiegel, EPA's on-scene coordinator, in a statement provided by the DEC.
Wanstall said the state will hire a contractor to first protect the site, hoping to stop runoff that could expand the contaminated area, and then clean it up.
The cleanup will probably happen after winter, he said, because once work starts it must be done on a tight timeline.
"We don't want to get where we excavate some of this hazardous material and then get trapped in a snowstorm and the clock's ticking," Wanstall said.
About 4,000 cubic yards of material will have to be removed, then most likely shipped by barge to Washington and then shipped by rail to an Oregon disposal site that specializes in hazardous waste.
The goal, he said, is to clean the Wrangell site so it can be used as residential property.
Wanstall said he hoped the cleanup would not cost the full $4 million.
"We're authorized for that, but we certainly hope we don't have to use that much," he said.
The state tries to recover cleanup costs when it can, but that appears unlikely in this case, he said. The original owner is long dead and the subsequent owner has not been heard from in years, Wanstall said. And he doubts there would be any money to recover there.
"That individual was trying to carry out a plan to fix the problems at the site," he said.
That person appeared to have run out of money, and possibly had some physical or medical problems, he said. "He's gone off the radar," he said.
Rushmore, the Wrangell official, said the junkyard, four miles south of town on the Zimovia Highway, was outside Wrangell city limits when it began operation without regulation. It is now part of the Wrangell Borough.
But she said locals didn't realize how bad things had gotten at Byford Salvage.
"Over time I think people did realize there were going to be issues, but I don't think anybody realized that it was to the extent that it was," Rushmore said.