Lead Cleanup at Brevard's Former Firing Ranges Is Complete, State Says
Lead-contaminated soil from two old law-enforcement ranges, one at the Water Treatment Plant and one at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, has been removed. A related criminal case is still pending.
By Dan DeWitt
BREVARD — This is the key sentence in a July 23 letter to the city of Brevard from the state Department of Environmental Quality’s Hazardous Waste Section:
“The HWS finds that no further action is required at this time in the area impacted.”
And this is how it fits in with the larger story:
The city has taken a major step towards resolving one of its biggest environmental problems in recent history, completing the second of two state-mandated cleanups of former law-enforcement firing ranges at a total cost of nearly a half-million dollars.
The July letter effectively closed the case — formally known as an Immediate Action Notice of Violation (IANOV) — against the city for its handling of lead pollution at a range at the city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant off Wilson Road.
DEQ sent a similar letter in May certifying the completion of the cleanup and treatment of soil — some of it containing enough lead to be classified as hazardous waste — at the site of a former firing range at the city’s Water Treatment Plant on Catheys Creek Road.
These notices rose out of the same investigation that led to a criminal case that has not yet been resolved — a federal indictment naming city Public Works Director David Lutz.
Lutz, who remains on the job, faces charges of mishandling 20 truckloads of soil — some of it contaminated with lead at concentrations several times the federal hazardous-waste threshold — removed from the range site at the Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2016 and eventually deposited in the Transylvania County Landfill.
The state began investigating in 2018, when a resident who lives near the Catheys Creek site complained about plans to build a new range there. When DEQ staffers arrived, they noticed the remains of a berm that had been used as the firing range’s backstop and questioned the city about the closure of this range, which was active until 2005. They also inquired about the closure of the newer range at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, which was closed to make room for a plant expansion in 2016.
About $496,000 was paid to S&ME, the engineering firm the city contracted to supervise the cleanup, most of it going to a subcontractor, Contaminant Control Inc., which excavated both sites, said David Loftis, an S&ME senior engineer.
The cost included testing and preliminary work at both sites, as well as higher-than expected expenses for the work at the Water Treatment Plant, where CCI ended up removing far more soil than expected.
That cleanup, following plans approved by DEQ, started with the removal of 30 loads of dirt, according to a report submitted by S&ME to DEQ. These stockpiles of soil were tested with a method designed to mimic the forming of leachate in a landfill. In nine of the piles, the concentration exceeded the federal hazardous waste standard of 5 parts per million, with the highest reading being 120 parts per million.
The most contaminated soil was treated with a stabilizing compound that allowed it to be disposed of in a conventional, lined landfill. Further testing showed some soil remaining at the range site was contaminated with lead above a lower “remediation” standard. This required CCI to remove and dispose of more loads of dirt, bringing the total to about 1,300 tons.
That was about twice as much as expected, increasing the subcontractor’s bill by $32,000 and helping to bump the cost of the cleanup at the site from the estimated $220,000 to $298,000.
On the other hand, significantly less soil than expected was removed in the subsequent cleanup of the Wastewater Treatment site performed in December of 2020 and January of 2021.
None of the 33 stockpiles of soil removed contained concentrations high enough to be classified as hazardous waste, and the soil was “placed into dump trucks and transported for off-site disposal,” says the July letter from DEQ environmental chemist Richard Concepcion.
The total cost of the work there, $198,000, was about $100,000 less than expected, Loftis said.
Water at both sites was tested repeatedly for lead, and only one test at each site revealed elevated levels, S&ME’s report says. At the Wastewater site, this high reading was found in a sample taken in the French Broad River upstream from the old range.
The elevated level at the Water Treatment site was found in a drainage ditch that flows near the range but enters Catheys Creek downstream from the intake pipe for the city’s drinking water.
Tests of the city’s drinking water have never shown measurable levels of lead, water plant operator Dennis Richardson said earlier this year.
Concepcion’s letters for both sites include provisions that the city could face penalties in the future. But the city reached an agreement with S&ME to clean up the old ranges as soon as it was notified of the violations, City Manager Jim Fatland wrote in an email, and the city has never been fined by the state as part of these cases.
Loftis said that language about possible future action is standard in dealings with DEQ regulators.
“They always leave a little wiggle room, but usually when you get that (no further action) letter, that’s a good thing,” he said. “As far as assessment and cleanup, it sounds like this is the end.”