Umiat, Alaska Soil Remediation at Former Air Force Base

Umiat, Alaska lies adjacent to the Colville River approximately 140 miles southwest of Deadhorse, Alaska in the Arctic. The U.S. Navy Seabees drilled the first oil well at Umiat for the former Naval Petroleum Reserve in 1944, and the site later became a U.S. Air Force Station. Umiat is now a commercial hunting lodge.

Jacobs Engineering, under its Total Environmental Restoration Contract (TERC) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, subcontracted to remediate approximately 30,000 tons of contaminated drilling mud and contaminated soil generated from former test wells. The scope of work included construction of a Category C Treatment Facility, excavating, stockpiling, and thermally treating soils contaminated with hydrocarbons, DDT and heavy metals, and collecting and treating contaminated wastewater and runoff from the site. Umiat is an extremely remote site not served by road or rail, and has one of the coldest climates of any location in Alaska. Oover 1,000 tons of heavy equipment and supplies were mobilized via chartered freight planes and overland by rolligons over frozen tundra in temperatures as low as -100 degrees Farenheight.

Project Performance

During the 2002 construction season site construction and water treatment activities were completed, and 10,000 tons of contaminated drilling muds were treated. Tthe 2003 season saw completion of treatment of the remaining 20,000 tons of contaminated drilling muds, for a total of 30,000 tons of contaminated soils successfully treated at this remote work site. Demobilization was completed in March of 2004.