Dennis Evanosky
AIS Marine Service’s mechanical dredger Myrtle Irene winds up a day of work at the Seaplane Lagoon. The dredger is removing contaminants that flowed into the lagoon from buildings 5 and 400.
A Carpenteria, Calif., company is currently dredging Alameda Point’s Seaplane Lagoon. AIS Marine Service’s (AIS) mechanical dredger Myrtle Irene is equipped with a bucket that can hold some seven and three-quarters cubic yards of material and can dig as deep as 50 feet. If needed, AIS can fit the dredger with special-purpose tools that include buckets, tongs and a rotary head.
AIS is busy removing sediment that storm drains deposited into the lagoon from buildings 5 and 400. These drains flowed, across West Tower Avenue from the site of today’s Bladium sports complex. Building 5 once housed what the Navy called an “aircraft rework facility,” while a smaller Building 400 adjacent to Building 5 was a “missile rework facility.”
In 2009, the Navy, which is responsible for the clean up, replaced the storm drains; now it’s time to remove the damage these two buildings did to Seaplane Lagoon, which the Navy calls “Installation Restoration Site 17” (IR Site 17).
The Navy used the Seaplane Lagoon for a variety of water-related activities. According to M.L. Shettle Jr. of the California State Military Museum, at the height of World War II, adjacent to the lagoon were three working ramps, a lighted seadrome and a series of giant repair and maintenance hangars for the Navy’s PBY-5 seaplane squadrons.
Unfortunately, industrial wastewater mixed with Mother Nature’s storm water; the concoction was discharged directly into a network of storm drains and carried, in part, into IR Site 17 through storm sewer outfalls. The outfalls located in the northeast and northwest corners of the lagoon were the primary sources of impacts to the sediments. Workers at the site said that AIS was primarily dredging sediment from these outfalls.
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) document states that the lagoon contains contaminants — which EPA calls “chemicals of potential concern like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs,); semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs); pesticides and radionuclides.” Radionuclides are atoms with unstable nuclei that emit radiation.
“From the 1940s to 1975, approximately 300 million gallons of untreated industrial wastewater and storm water that reportedly contained heavy metals, solvents, paints, detergents, acids, caustics, mercury, oil and grease, and Radium 226 (Ra-226) were discharged into a network of storm drains and carried, in part, through storm sewer outfalls directly into [the] Seaplane Lagoon,” the report states.
In 1938, Congress appropriated $10 million to develop the Alameda Naval Air Station. A year later, construction began to accommodate two carrier air groups, two utility squadrons, five seaplane squadrons along with an assembly and repair department. In July 1940, Congress appropriated enough money to enlarge the station with two seaplane hangars and a carrier berthing pier, as well as other facilities.
According to Shettle, dozens of Navy seaplane patrol squadrons passed through Alameda during World War II. The facility also had the distinction of playing host to one of the largest aircraft ever built, a Martin PB2M-1R Mars — a seaplane contemporary of Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose. Contrary to one urban legend Pan Am Clippers did not take off from or land at the Seaplane Lagoon.
The Navy reports that the current work at the lagoon should wrap up in April.