Due to extensive flood damage, FEMA tasked EPA to collect and manage household hazardous wastes (HHW), white goods, e-goods, orphaned haz-mat containers and asbestos on curbsides.  In addition EPA will be providing air monitoring/sampling support throughout the operational theater.  During the week of July 25th, it was determined that vermiculite insulation (aka "Zonolite" or "Zonolite Attic Insulation" or "ZAI") is present in some of the older homes and neighborhoods.  Consequently, this asbestos bearing material has been appearing in the curbside debris piles as home owners return and gut their houses.

Returning property owners continue to bring out HHW and e-wastes for collection.  Orphaned containers continue to be present in a few areas but most of the operational area has been cleared (see Operations Section).  The number of properties with, and the amount of asbestos bearing materials are decreasing steadily as well throughout the Minot area.

Recon Teams continue to use the established grid system of Ward and McHenry counties to systematically track and manage the presence of hazardous materials.  Summaries of these assessments can be found on the EPA Field Assessment Viewer (http://react.nvs-inc.com/epasilver/).   

The Operation Section is organized into three branches:

    I.      Processing Pad Branch (OSC Peronard)
                Container Group (Waste Sorting/Bulking)
                White Goods Team (Cleaning/Freon Removal/Mercury Removal)
                START Team (Monitoring/Hazard Categorization/Counting and Reporting)

    II.     Container Collection Branch (OSC Nattis, replaced by OSC Zavala on 09/09/11)
                Curbside HHW Collection Group
                Orphaned Container Collection (Land) Group (open access collection)
                Orphaned Container Collection (Remote) Group (river and difficult access collection)
                Recon Team

    III.    Asbestos Collection Branch (OSC Nguyen)
                Bag Collection Group (collected bagged asbestos material)
                Excavation Group (excavate debris piles)
                Vac Group (vacuum loose piles of ZAI)
                Recon Team

Process Pad Branch:   The Pad crews continue to sort and bulk the incoming streams of HHW and orphaned containers (OCs).  As of 9/11/11, over 105,000 containers have been collected and processed at the Collection Pad.  This includes: small containers, drums, tanks, propane tanks, cylinders, batteries, fire extinguishers, fluorescent bulbs, ammunition, small engines and other.   

White goods continue to be received from the USACE collection operation, and to date 5,500 have been received.  This tallly includes over 1,980 refrigeration/freezer units, 219 air conditioners, and 3,300 inert goods (stoves, washers, etc.).  EPA ERRS crews process the units: First, spoiled food is removed and disposed of in the landfill, the refrigerators are then cleaned with bleach, and then finally freon, compressor oils, and mercury switches are removed for recycling. The White Goods Team has cleaned all of the received refrigerators and all of the inert white goods to date.  Freon, oil, and/or mercury switches have been removed from over 1,800 refrigerators.  The processed refrigerators, along with all the inert white goods, have been turned over to the city of Minot for scrap-metal recycling. The total e-waste recovery volume is over 565 cy.   More than 500 cy (approximately 120,000 lbs.) of e-wastes have been shipped off-site for recycling.  In addition, over 1,200 propane tanks have been sent to the local gas company (Ferrell Gas) for re-use.

On September 11, 2011, the disposal/recycling sub-contractor (EQ) brought in a team of technicians to begin the final preparation (labeling, placarding, etc.) of the bulked loads of flammables, paints, oil, oxidizers, pesticides, caustics, acids, and batteries for off-site shipment.  The rate of off-site transport of collected materilas should increase dramatically the week of September 12th.  Every effort is being made to find reuse and recycling options for the waste streams generated from EPA's operations in Minot.

Hazardous classification by the START chemists on the backlog of over 1,500 containers of unknown materials has been eliminated.  The Region 8 "Level A Truck," which houses a mobile GC/MS unit and a fume hood, remains on-site to assist the identification effort. During the week of September 4-10, approximately 20-30 unknown containers were received each day.  The START Team is currently keeping up with the incoming unknowns without difficulty.

Asbestos Collection Branch:  As of September 11, 2011, EPA has removed over 2,500 cy ZAI containing material from properties in the affected area.  This has resulted from a total of 354 cleanups at 254 properties.  As has been discussed in previous polreps, EPA has been experiencing the problem of having to do multiple cleanups at several properties where the owner has brought the ZAI material to the curb in an episodic fashion.  EPA has done a more thorough assessment throughout the flood zone and believes that 222 of the properties that we have addressed will not require further action.  This leaves 32 properties still to be cleaned, plus any newly discovered properties  Because recon efforts continue, each day a few more properties are added to the asbestos queue.  However, for the last week the number of outstanding properties has shrunk daily.  It now appears that the number of properties where the owners are continuing to gut their homes is dwindling.  However, it is likely that there is a substantial number of homes in the flood zone that still contain ZAI that have not been touched by their owners.  This may result in ZAI containing debris being generated in the future.  This concern has been forwarded on to FEMA and the city of Minot through meetings at the EOC, as well as back to FEMA at the JFO.

Container Collection Branch:  HHW and OC collection efforts continue.  As of September 11, 2011, over 11,000 OCs have been collected. 

The area from Burlington to Minot has been cleared of items and a verification reconnaissance inspection was completed by OSC (Nattis).  Likewise OSCs Nattis and Zavala have cleared over 90% of the areas from Minot down to Velva.  In short, the OC is now focussed on a short list of large container items, mostly in and around Minot.  It is anticipated that the OC collection effort will end by September 19, 2011.  If possible, orphan tanks and/or containers are returned to their original owner

Pending final OSC verification , the HHW Collection Group has finished what is expected to be final sweeps through all areas outside the city of Minot.  Work continues within the city of Minot, though overall collection numbers continue to decrease.  The EPA and USACE issued a joint information statement/news release prior to and over the Labor Day Weekend regarding collection activities.  In effect, the EPA announced that it will begin the final sweep for curbside collection of HHW on September 19, 2011.  It is anticipated that this effort will take 3-5 days, after which collection responsibilities will be turned over to the city of Minot.  At this time, EPA HHW collection teams are working in are following the USACE debris collection teams as they make their final sweeps in Minot. 

A summary of the collection efforts to date, as well as a graphical representation of collection trends can be found at the following link:   http://www.epaosc.org/sites/7093/files/Total%20Count%20as%20of%20091011.pdf

A link to a website http://react.nvs-inc.com/EPASilver/ contains a visual summary of all recon, collection, and other information through the area of operation.