Moffett Users

Updates:

* Added slideshows.

I’m here at Building 943, just outside Moffett Field main gate, for the RAB meeting. I’ll add notes to this entry as the meeting progresses.

The agenda and the draft minutes from the last meeting are available. The next RAB meeting is scheduled for May 15, the third Thursday in May, rather than the usual second Thursday. Further meetings in 2008:

* July 10
* September 11
* November 13

6:55 p.m.: Only a few people have arrived so far. Linda Ellis tells me that she is making progress in getting permission for her team to go inside Hangar One to do their own structural analysis.

7:10 p:m: The Navy’s Darren Newton introduces Community Co-Chair Bob Moss to start the meeting.

Bob notes this is one of the smaller crowds in the past few years. RAB Member Lenny Siegel sent Bob an email to say he hopes to arrive from San Diego before too late.

Bob calls for introductions around the room. Representatives from Mountain View and Sunnyvale city government are here. Reporter Daniel Debolt is here.

Bob reviews the agenda.

Bob reads a formal thank-you from the Navy to Tania Fragomeno of Katz & Associates, who for years has supported the BRAC process at Moffett. She compiles the minutes and distributes all of the hand-outs to the RAB members and the public before each meeting.

The minutes are approved without correction.

7:18: Next, Darren announces the community co-chair election to be held at the May meeting.

Darren notes the RAB had planned to hear about groundwater, but EPA’s Alana Lee couldn’t make it, so the agenda changed.

Darren reads a letter on the status of the 52 Western Pond Turtles captured during the clean-up of the channels. Many have returned to their original homes in the Marriage Road Ditch. A RAB member asks for the details of the habitat, and there is discussion of its progress.

Darren runs through a series of administrative announcements. He notes that his BRAC office can’t help with questions about the Navy Exchanged, which closed last month.

7:26: To begin the regulatory update, Elizabeth Wells from the Water Board notes that the board has three new members. The board meets monthly in Oakland to make decisions about permits, fines, orders, and so on. Since the January meeting, the petroleum program was put on the back burner, but Elizabeth and the Navy have a goal to close as many sites as possible this year. They will have monthly meetings to keep things going.

Sarah Kloss is representing the EPA tonight. She gives a brief report on their work since January.

7:30: Darren introduces Scott Gromko to give the Hangar One update. Scott’s agenda:

* Background
* Structural Analysis Update
* Next Steps
* Questions

Scott goes over the usual background on Hangar One. He goes into more detail than usual about the layers of the hangar siding, which the Navy and NASA say is the source of the PCBs that must be cleaned up. He notes that chemical treatments must be able to penetrate several low-porosity layers to reach the material that is the source of the PCBs.

Bob Moss asks whether AMSTAR’s chemical treatment has been studied. Scott says it will not work, because it can’t penetrate. Another RAB member asks whether it will work for the frame. Scott replies that they haven’t looked into that. Bob asks whether AMSTAR was given a sample of the siding. Scott says they were, and they are still studying it, but it hasn’t worked so far.

A community member asks whether any form of radiation has been tried to break down the structure of the PCBs. Scott says the Navy has never heard of such an approach. The community member suggests it would be an easier way to treat the contamination.

Scott moves on to the structural analysis update. The contractor is Exceltech Consulting, Inc. He notes they are well-qualified to do the analysis. Abdul Chahim is the engineer performing the analysis. Scott presents a list of steel structures that Abdul and Exceltech have worked on:

* VAQ Trainer Building, Whidbey Island, Washington
* Shore Operation Building, Seattle, Washington
* Ten-Story Woodland Condominium, Lexington, Kentucky

Scott describes Hangar One’s structure as a “gravity system” with a “lateral resisting system” that prevents the building shifting sideways. He shows a photo of the frame as it was being built.

Because the drawings of the hangar are from the 1930s, Exceltech needed access to the hangar to take direct measurements, which occurred on:

* December 12
* January 11
* February 7

Their computer model includes the entire building, over 25,000 structural members, actually consists of three buildings attached by expansion joints. Scott shows static representations of the computer model, one with each size of steel member represented in a different color. Another image shows the arches.

Next, a picture of the inside of the hangar, including the expansion joints. An image represents one arch, built atop an A-frame on each side of the hangar. The two sides of the arch are pinned to the A-frames and to each other at the top of the hangar.

A photo of the pin joint at the top of one of the arches shows the steel is painted, and the Navy has found the paint contains PCBs.

The structural analysis includes:

* Inspect and summarize site conditions
* Build the computer model
* Calculate input parameters
* Identify any areas of unacceptable structural integrity
* Present options and costs for areas of retrofit, if necessary

Currently, Exceltech is calculating the input parameters. The required loads are determined by the California History Building Code.

Next steps:

* Complete structural analysis
* Incorporate it into the revised EE/CA
* Release the EE/CA for review and comment
* Public meeting to receive comments
* Issue Action Memorandum

Kevin Woodhouse of Mountain View asks for the presentation slides.

Lenny Siegel asks how they built the hangar without computers. Scott says Abdul says the hangar is within 2% of its design, all without computers. Lenny says that’s an important historic question the building can answer. A community member notes the design similarities of the hangar to the airships it housed.

Bob Moss asks when the analysis might be done. Scott says there is not a set schedule, but by Spring. The Navy is letting quality drive the schedule. Bob says it looks like a lot of progress has been made. Scott says the model is built, and now Exceltech is debugging it. A lot of the time involves reports the Navy must find to provide the input data, such as a liquefaction study from a nearby building.

Jack Gale asks where the Navy found the original drawings of the hangar. Scott says they’re in an archive at NASA.

A community member asks whether the analysis discriminated between the PCBs in the siding vs. those on the frame and the floor. Scott says the same Aeroclor 1268 was found in the lead-based paint as in the siding, as determined by scraping the paint after cleaning off any surface contamination. The dust in the hangar contains PCBs, lead, and asbestos.

Georganna Hymes is here, and once again asserts that’s there’s nothing wrong with the hangar that can’t be solved with “one of the Navy’s billions.” She calls for an anlysis by an independent scientist, and then for the building to be fixed, not torn down.

Linda Ellis’s structural analyst asks whether the whole building is in such good shape as the close-up of the top arch join shown in the photo. Scott says it is, but there has been some flaking of the paint.

A community member asks the diameter of the pin in the arch joints. Scott says it’s six inches in diameter. The arch segments are built up with hot rivets, which aren’t used anymore.

A community member asks, if the rainwater can’t get in through the low-porosity materials, how does it carry the PCBs out? Scott says it’s because the siding has deteriorated. RAB Member Arthur Schwartz notes that PCBs can migrate through the low-porosity materials more easily than water can penetrate. Darren points out that the coating added more recently has deteriorated. An extensive discussion ensues of the concentration of PCBs in the hangar material, and the clean-up standards of the hangar as an industrial site, and the standards that apply to the environment downstream.

Lenny Siegel asks whether the PCBs found inside the hangar come from the paint or the siding. NASA’s Sandy Olliges says it’s probably both.

Georganna Hymes thinks that nobody has ever been affected by the PCBs, so she doesn’t believe a word of it.

8:18: Darren introduces the Navy’s Wilson Doctor to report on the Petroleum Program, which includes:

* Buildings 29 and 55 pipelines
* Additional Building 29 pipelines
* Building 55 sump
* Site 14 South

Current status:

* 75 petroleum sites closed to date
* 54 sites in progress

In the Navy’s meeting with the Water Board today, five more sites were closed. When sites are closed, the Water Board issues a closure summary if they concur, or a letter that describes the discrepancies. All of the reports are available on the Water Board’s “Geotracker” on their web site.

Jack Gale asks what constitutes a “site.” Darren says each tank and pipeline, or a group of them, is a site. They were well cataloged by the Navy.

Bob Moss notes that reports come out all the time, and he believes the work is progressing well.

Wilson describes the Building 29 and 55 pipelines, which were used for aviation fuel (near Hangar One, inactive for decades) and boiler fuel (near Hangars Two and Three, inactive since at least 1994). The Navy collected soil samples every 20 feet and completed fieldwork and now they’re preparing a draft report. Peter Strauss asks whether only petroleum was studied, and Wilson says that’s all. Peter notes that the pipelines can provide pathways for other contaminants. Darren notes other chemicals would be dealt with in other investigations.

Wilson shows a photo of one of the excavations down to the pipeline. The pipelines were flushed and the ends capped. They are left in place. If future development would affect the pipeline, only the affected segments would be removed.

Additional pipelines were found near Building 29, installed in the 1930s and 1940s, and are inactive since the 1960s. The Navy sampled every 50 feet, and fieldwork was completed in November, 2007. A draft report should be out by the end of April.

Wilson shows an interesting diagram of the pipelines, which ran from Building 29 on the west side of Hangar One around the north end of the hangar to aircraft fueling points on the apron on the east side of the hangar. Two other branches go to the former dirigible mooring circles well north and south of the hangar.

The Building 55 sump was installed in 2005 to capture soil contamination from a boiler fuel tank that leaked. It’s a ten-foot deep PVC pipe. The sump was removed and soil samples collected last month. Its purpose was to collect a sheen of oil periodically, but not much was collected. Groundwater monitoring will continue, and a draft report will be prepared.

Site 14 South is a one-acre gas station where two 5,000-gallon tanks were removed in 1986. Soil and groundwater assessment begain in 1987, monitoring in the mid-1990s, and assements in 2003. Chemical oxidation injection was begun in January, 2005, in hopes to break down the petroleum. The injections seemed to be working initially, but levels returned, causing the Navy to decide to do more assessment of the site. Previous investigations found the plume to be stable, not migrating. The Navy will install additional monitoring wells, evaluate the data, and perhaps do more testing of the double-walled replacement tanks that are still in use (even though NASA’s testing shows the tanks are not leaking).

8:44: Wilson moves on to the Site 22 Five-Year Review, which came out last month. Site 22 is a landfill of about 10 acres active 1950-1967. Its final Record of Decision was issued in June, 2002.

The presentation computer locked up, but Tania got it going after a few minutes.

Wilson says the five-year review is required under CERCLA to ensure that the clean-up remains effective. He describes the requirements of the review, including community involvement. We reported on the five-year review of another site last year.

Wilson goes over the background of the Site 22 clean-up. Ongoing activities include methane and groundwater monitoring, regular maintenance, inspections with Santa Clara County, annual reports, and land surveys to ensure the landfill is not subsiding. A RAB member asks whether there is salt water intrusion, and Wilson replies that there is, and that’s the reason for the groundwater monitoring.

The Five-Year Review draft was issued last November, the final report in February, and EPA concurrence was received this month. The next review is due in 2013. The review found the clean-up remains protective, but did find chloroform in the ground and methane in the landfill gas, but recently below the Navy’s criteria. The Water Board and EPA are informed of excursions in the monitoring. Institutional controls will ensure that NASA doesn’t interfere with the landfill. An extensive discussion follows on gas and groundwater contamination levels, methods of monitoring, and the long-term cost of the site.

9:15: Darren asks for suggestion for future meetings. Don Chuck suggests that the Navy give a talk on PCBs and why they’re a problem. Darren wants to talk about groundwater in May.

Linda Ellis hands another 194 signatures in support of re-skinning Hangar One. The total signatures are now 1,802. Darren reads the cover letter, which notes that the newest signatures were collected by citizens on their own initiative.

9:18: Adjournment.