(The following story by Diane Dietz appeared on The Register-Guard website on August 13.)
EUGENE, Ore. — Union Pacific has spent about $6 million addressing pollution at its Eugene rail yard, according to the Department of Environmental Quality.
Besides paying a half dozen consultants for studies and testing, the railroad removed 380 cubic yards of contaminated soil and tested an experimental system to break down toxic solvents that are in the ground water.
In spring 2005, the railroad injected 340 pounds of powdered corn sugar into the most contaminated part of the groundwater pollution plume, which is underneath the rail yard.
The sugar was to feed naturally occurring underground microbes and beef up their ability to break the solvents into innocuous end products.
The system has not proven successful anywhere, said Jim Curtis, a railroad consultant.
But early water sampling at the Eugene yard shows a decrease in the solvent levels, said Greg Aitken, clean-up manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
“It will definitely bring relief, but it could take years,” Aitken said.
If the treatment pans out, the railroad might inject dextrose in the rail yard and in the neighborhoods as part of the final ground water treatment, Aitken said.
Curtis urged caution because in the microbial breakdown process, the chemicals turn even more toxic before they’re rendered harmless.
“We need to give those natural systems time to operate,” he said. “We need to make sure the processes we’ve put in place goes through to completion so we don’t get rebound.”