Alaska’s Forest Service partners invest $4 million for environmental clean-up

February 4, 2022

ALASKA – The Federal Aviation Administration spent just under $4 million in 2021 conducting cleanup activities at various sites on Alaska’s National Forests.

FAA is known for operating critical aviation communication sites that help pilots navigate through the state’s mountainous terrain and have multiple sites with equipment and structures scattered throughout Alaska to help with this. What may not be commonly known, is that FAA also has an environmental responsibility to clean up sites with past contamination and it devotes major financial investments each year for cleanup measures and to mitigate site contamination.

A landscape, open ground in the middle, trees frme each side, a body of water and a mountain range can be seen in the foreground through a clearing in the middle. — *Completed restoration on Sisters Island. Photo courtesy of the Federal Aviation Administration.*

In 2021, the largest financial investments in Alaska were at Level Island, Sisters Island and Johnstone Point with FAA spending more than $3.5 million dollars.

Level Island is in Southeast Alaska found in between the communities of Petersburg and Wrangell. When this station was established in 1964, about 20 people lived on the island. Currently, it is uninhabited and FAA employees visit the site periodically for maintenance.

During the Level Island cleanup, FAA removed all debris from a former dump area and surrounding soil that was contaminated. This resulted in more than 2,500 cubic yards of dirt being sent to a contaminated soil facility in Oregon. Costs from this multi-year cleanup project totaled more than $2.7 million dollars in 2021 alone. FAA is returning to Level Island in 2022 to complete the cleanup of the dump area.

Sisters Island Station is located 35 miles west of Juneau, Alaska. In 1997, FAA began the cleanup by removing debris and contaminated soil from underground storage tanks that leaked. In May 2021, FAA spent about $400,000 to remove the remaining contamination at the dump site.

A trench has been dug on the ground, white bags *filled with sand and debris) are lined up at the edge of the trench. The threads of a small excavator can be seen on the top right corner of the photo. — *Clean-up in process at the Sisters Island dump site. Photo courtesy of the Federal Aviation Administration.*

About 28 miles outside of Cordova, Alaska, is Johnstone Point Station. This site is different from Level Island and Sisters Island in that people are periodically stationed at the facility. More than half a million dollars were spent at this location in 2021 on site investigations for soil, sediments, and surface water contaminants, and on long-term groundwater monitoring.

FAA’s clean-up efforts highlight the dedication of other federal agency partners to help the Forest Service manage public lands for generations to come.