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Lake Turingen Remedial Project

Isolation of mercury contaminated sediment

LIFE ENVIRONMENT

Project No. LIFE98 ENV/S/000477

Progress Report No. 6 September 12, 2001 Municipality of Nykvarn

Sweden

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LAKE TURINGEN REMEDIAL PROJECT Progress Report No. 6

LIFE98 ENV/S/000477

2001-09-12 Page 2 (9)

LIFE Project Number

LIFE98 ENV/S/000477

PROGRESS REPORT No. 6

Covering project activities from 01/01/2001 to 30/06/2001

Reporting Date

12/09/2001

LIFE PROJECT NAME

Lake Turingen Remedial Project

Project Data

Project location: Nykvarn, Sweden

Project start date: 01/02/1998

Project end date: 31/03/2003 Extension date:

Total Project duration (in months): 60 months Extension months:

Total budget 1998:

Revised budget 2001:

€ 4 725 863,95 SEK 50 400 000,00

EC contribution: € 890 422,15

(%) of total costs 1998: 18,84 (%) of eligible costs 1998: 27,62

Beneficiary Data

Name of beneficiary: Municipality of Nykvarn

Contact person: Ms. Inger Eriksson, Managing Director Postal address: SE-155 80 Nykvarn, Sweden

Visiting address: Centrumvägen 24, SE-155 80 Nykvarn, Sweden

Telephone: +46 8 552 487 00

Fax: +46 8 552 489 99

E-mail: inger.eriksson@nykvarn.se

Website: http://www.nykvarn.se

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary ...4

Project Management ...4

General...4

Legal Issues...5

Technical Development ...5

Investigations ...5

Environmental monitoring ...6

Remedial Construction...7

Problems encountered or foreseen...7

Dissemination...7

Expected progress up to 31/12/2001 ...8

Financial situation...8

Scheduling ...8

Statement of submission...9 Appendices

Cover Page – Report to Ministry of Environment ...Appendix 1 First Page – Report for Swedish EPA...Appendix 2 First Page – Revised Permit Conditions ...Appendix 3 Paper regarding the role of suspended matter...Appendix 4 Title Page – Report from Environmental Monitoring Program...Appendix 5 Cover Page – Revised Environmental Monitoring Program...Appendix 6 First Page – Request for Bids for Chemical Analyses ...Appendix 7 Fourth Project Newsletter (Swedish and English) ...Appendix 8 Project Information Sheet...Appendix 9 Expenditure report ...Appendix 10 Time Schedule ...Appendix 11

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Executive Summary

The primary objective of the Lake Turingen Remedial Project is to isolate between 90 and 95% of the mercury-contaminated sediments found in the lake and in the river Turingeån from the aquatic environment. The most important activities and results from the reporting period ended June 30, 2001 are:

• Reorganization (streamlining) of project management

• Physical preparations for Stage 2 construction (gel capping of lake bottoms)

• Preliminary indications of positive results from Stage 1 construction (capping with sand and gravel of lake bottoms near the mouth of the river).

Project Management

General

The project management group – consisting of the project manager, project administrator, financial administrator, dissemination coordinator, and task managers – held three meetings during the reporting period. The project manager also disseminated information about the project to an EU-meeting in Stockholm in May 2001 hosted by the Swedish EPA.

In preparation for Stage 2 of the project, project management was reorganized. Two of the technical development tasks – remedial design & planning and legal issues & permitting – were eliminated. These steps were taken to streamline management, since all remedial design has now been completed, and since no further legal issues are known to exist. Legal issues that arise in the future will be handled by a support function within project management. The new organization is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. New project organization.

The project’s interim financial and technical reports to the European Commission were issued in February 2001. Reports to satisfy requirements from the two other major sources of

Project administration - Planning, quality assurance - Time & budget management - Reporting, archiving

Project support - Environmental agencies - Technical experts - Legal issues & permitting

Dissemination

- Information materials, documentation - Contacts with interested parties - Study visits

Investigations - Studies & tests

- Guidelines for design & monitoring

Environmental monitoring - Monitoring program

- Evaluation of results

Remedial construction

- Construction mangement & monitoring - Inspections and repairs

Project manager

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financial support – the Ministry of the Environment and the Swedish EPA – were also issued in February 2001 (Appendix 1 and 2).

Legal Issues

In May 2001, the Environmental Court of Stockholm issued revised permit conditions for the project (Appendix 3). The terms were completely in accordance with those conditions requested by project management, and pertain to two major issues:

• Finalization of as-built conditions for Stage 1 construction

• Permission for the Stage 2 contractor to work during evening hours, if necessary.

Technical Development

Investigations

Results, which had been previously reported from field and laboratory tests of the gel cover method, were translated into specifications that the remedial contractor for the planned gel cap is required to fulfill.

In May 2001, the project manager and task manager for environmental monitoring participated in a workshop (sponsored by the Swedish Research Council) regarding particulates in aquatic systems. The project manager presented a paper at the workshop describing observations made in Lake Turingen (Appendix 4). Subsequent to research results presented by others at the workshop, a limited study regarding mercury in the colloidal fraction of water in Lake Turingen was carried out in June 2001. This study indicated that colloids do not play a major role as bearers of mercury in this particular system.

Monitoring data indicates that there is still a significant amount of mercury transported to the lake by the river Turingeån, a phenomenon that was expected to gradually decrease. A study is being planned during autumn 2001 to try to locate the source of this contamination.

No other activities are currently ongoing or planned within the investigations task.

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Environmental monitoring

Following the completion of Stage 1 remediation in September 2000, the project entered an evaluation phase. Environmental monitoring activities were adjusted accordingly and have proceeded at a lower sampling frequency during this period. Chemical analyses were also focused more on certain key parameters. Finally, certain additional parameters were added in order to create a reference base for gel capping. A report issued at the end of August 2001

summarizes monitoring activities and results from the evaluation phase of Stage 1 (Appendix 5). Results continue to show that Stage 1 activities did not adversely affected the aquatic system. On the contrary, there are some indications that the flow of mercury-contaminated particles – from the area that was capped in Stage 1 – has been partially arrested. Figure 2 illustrates how mercury concentrations in suspended particles just downstream of the affected area (station SN) have been reduced to approximately the same level as in the center of the lake (station C).

Figure 2. Mercury in falling sediment (D = dredging, C = capping, A = adjustments).

Horizontal line lengths represent periods during which sediment was collected.

In preparation for Stage 2, a revised Environmental Monitoring Program was submitted to the County Administrative Board in May 2001 (Appendix 6). Bids for a laboratory to perform chemical analyses during Stage 2 were also solicited and evaluated (Appendix 7) and a contract for this purpose was signed in June 2001.

Monitoring activities continue to follow the time schedule as planned. Adjustments are made as dictated by progress in remedial construction and with consideration to results obtained

through previous monitoring.

Hg in falling sediment (µg/g DW)

-1 0 1 2 3 4

Surface Bottom

D C ice C A

screen screen

1999 2000 2001 1999 2000 2001 1999 2000 2001 1999 2000 2001

SN C Station L M

D C ice C A D C ice C A

D C ice C A

Upstream Downstream

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Remedial Construction

Stage 2 remedial work – design, purchasing and assembly of necessary equipment - was carried out by the contractor during Spring and Summer 2001 and continues as of the date of this report (see cover photograph). However, the contractor has informed project management of certain problems, which in total entail a delay amounting to approximately one month.

The contractor’s internal testing, which was to have begun in August 2001, is therefore now scheduled for the latter half of September 2001. In accordance with the contract, project management will not certify the successful completion of testing until a large designated test area has been capped as specified.

Problems encountered or foreseen

The only significant problem that was encountered during this reporting period was the construction delay mentioned above. Should further delays occur, it is possible that the onset of winter will inhibit actual construction from taking place during 2001. Instead, all remediation would be postponed until 2002. A major potential consequence of this situation would be the inability to follow up an initial phase of gel capping and subsequently to have the contractor enact appropriate changes to his equipment, methodology or materials. In particular, the effects of winter conditions on the behavior and durability of a full-scale gel cap would remain unknown.

The contractor has assured project management that it has the capacity and resources to complete all remediation during 2002. In particular, the contractor can now work evening hours if necessary, in accordance with the revised permit conditions. At present, project management can envision no circumstances that would entail an extension of the project beyond its planned completion date (final reports to be issued by March 31, 2003).

Dissemination

Dissemination activities have proceeded as planned. Activities during the reporting period included:

• Major revision of the project’s Internet web site, linked from the municipal home page at http://www.nykvarn.se. The site will be fully parallel in Swedish and English.

• Issuance of the fourth project newsletter, in both Swedish and English (Appendix 8).

• Issuance of a revised project information sheet, in English (Appendix 9).

• Continued work on video documentation of the progress of remedial activities.

Planning is now beginning for a seminar to be held in May 2002 regarding remediation of contaminated sediments. The event – which should be attended by researchers, other experts and planners involved in such work – will be organized by the municipality of Nykvarn and focus on the Lake Turingen Remedial Project (including a site visit).

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Expected progress up to 31/12/2001

During the next reporting period, significant progress is expected in the following areas:

• Final assembly and testing of gel capping equipment.

• Full-scale gel capping of test area.

• Approximately one month of production gel capping.

• Investigation of remaining pockets of mercury in riverbed upstream of lake.

• Environmental monitoring report for the first Stage 2 remediation phase.

• Issuance of fifth project newsletter.

• Revision/updating of project poster presentation and web site.

• Site visits.

• Detailed planning for project seminar.

Financial situation

The financial status of the project per June 30, 2001 is shown in the expenditure report in Appendix 10. Approximately 60 % of budgeted funds have been expended, and all budget lines are in general accordance with the revised budget submitted to the European

Commission. However, no decision has been made by the Commission regarding the budget revision. Additionally, since the second Life-payment has not yet been received, there could be some financial strain placed on the project in coming months.

Future expenditure reports will also be based on the revised budget.

Scheduling

A comparison between planned and actual progress is shown in Appendix 11. The only major discrepancy at this time concerns the contractor’s completion of testing and the start of actual gel capping. Despite small delays by the remedial contractor during preparations for the start of Stage 2 construction, the project is still following its overall time schedule. Should further delays occur, it is possible that no actual construction will take place during 2001 as is

currently planned; instead the start of remediation will be postponed until 2002. The contractor has assured project management that it has the capacity and resources to complete all

remedial work during 2002 if necessary. Project management is also confident that there currently is enough leeway in the schedule such that overall completion of the project is not threatened.

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Statement of submission

The undersigned submits this progress report on the date shown below and asserts that it accurately represents the status of the project on June 30, 2001 in all pertinent regards.

Nykvarn, Sweden September 12, 2001

Ronald Bergman

Lake Turingen Remedial Project Project Manager