Transcript: Arsenic in the Soil: Understanding the Environmental Ramifications of Bridge Reconstruction
CLARICE: Hello, everybody. And welcome to this week’s episode of Environmentally Speaking.
MARISA: Hi, everyone. I’m Marisa Desautel, an environmental attorney in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
CLARICE: And I’m Clarice, coming in with questions, topics, and ideas to chat about. And this week we are talking about, I think, everybody’s new favorite meme or everybody’s sort of shared frustration.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: Have you seen the memes?
MARISA: No, I have not, actually. I’m waiting for your explanation.
CLARICE: Oh, I’ll tell you about those later.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: So we’re talking about the Washington in Providence.
MARISA: There are memes about this?
CLARICE: There are so many memes about this and specifically my favorite one is a dating — it’s dating related and it’s a picture of the bridge with, you know, the traffic that all Rhode Islanders now know and hate and it says, get you a person who’s willing to cross the bridge for a date.
MARISA: That’s a good one.
CLARICE: And it’s just a sea of red lights. I love that.
MARISA: Oh, my God. That’s a good one. Yeah. For those of our listeners not from the area, the Washington Street Bridge is one of the only bridges that allows for transportation from eastern — or excuse me — southwestern Massachusetts and the East Bay of Rhode Island to Providence.
CLARICE: Yeah. It’s huge.
MARISA: Yeah. Traffic in Rhode Island is not good anyway and then you add in this issue with the bridge where the Department of Transportation announced probably four weeks ago now that they were closing the bridge because the structural engineering was not safe. They found some underpinnings and joists and concrete that had been chipped away over time and for whatever reason it’s not safe to drive over it, so it’s created a ton of negative traffic conditions in Rhode Island and everyone is adding time on to their commute and trying to avoid it as best as they can.
CLARICE: Yeah. Absolutely. For some perspective for folks who aren’t from Rhode Island, I live right on the border of Rhode Island, so for me to get to Providence using the Washington Bridge is maybe 20 minutes no traffic. That was the before times. If this bridge closes it will now take an hour and 15 because we’ll have to go through Aquidneck Island and sort of go up and around the state —
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: — to get back down. So it’s a huge problem for people who are commuting, going to work, I mean, just trying to exist in that area.
MARISA: Yeah. Yeah. And the businesses in that area are suffering. It’s unfortunate. So this situation has turned into a bit of an environmental issue because of the implications associated with rebuilding the bridge and the environmental study and work that has to go on with that.
[0:03:10] CLARICE: Yeah. And one of the things that we wanted to talk about today was I haven’t read anything yet about tests or concerns about this, but this is sort of a typical issue that comes up with new builds and these tests, from my research, seem to be built into that process. It’s just a part of the process.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: And what we’re talking about is measuring for naturally occurring arsenic in the soil, which if you’ve never heard of that or didn’t know that exists, welcome. I didn’t last week either.
MARISA: Yeah. I just was thinking we’ve filtered down a relatively sexy topic to friggin’ arsenic. Wow.
CLARICE: Which, if you love true crime, could be sexy.
MARISA: Yeah. And I am familiar with arsenic in soil as, God, a bazillion years ago when I was an environmental scientist and consultant consulting on the Sakonnet River Bridge when they were replacing or rebuilding parts of that. And I remember taking soil samples and being shocked at the level of arsenic in soil, so it’s a thing here in Rhode Island. What did you learn about it?
CLARICE: So, first off, my first question was how did the arsenic get into the soil? How is this naturally occurring? What’s actually happening? And apparently it’s the 20th most abundant element on earth in the earth’s crust and it can come from just different organic elements being near each other. The arsenic forms, so it’s not necessarily what your first thought might be of somebody’s dumped arsenic, or there was another chemical and this is the end result. It can just occur in nature. But that being said, it can also — the concentrations can rise based on if you’re putting any sort of fertilizer, agricultural chemicals, or a wood preservative so a lot of times like around construction or where excess construction materials may end up because a lot of times we think, oh, it’s wood, it’s not so bad, but what is that wood being treated with.
MARISA: Right.
CLARICE: Which I had no idea.
MARISA: Yeah. And one of the things that I learned over the course of my career, Aquidneck Island particularly is known to have naturally occurring high concentrations of arsenic in the soil. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with any anthropogenic additions of arsenic, meaning you can find a high naturally occurring amount of arsenic in soil that was never subject to manufacturing, waste, or any kind of mill operation that would have resulted in arsenic being deposited into the soil or the groundwater. It’s just there.
[0:06:12] CLARICE: It’s there.
MARISA: Arsenic is just there, so that puts the regulatory industry in a strange position because how do you regulate an unhealthy naturally occurrence pollutant in soil? And what are they going to do with the Washington Bridge? Technically it’s not Aquidneck Island, but it’s my understanding based on the work done at the Sakonnet River Bridge that arsenic can also be found in high concentrations close to the water which is what we’ve got going on with the Washington Bridge.
CLARICE: Uh-huh. Which, yeah, it’s just the idea of how do you remediate something that’s just going to either consistently or continually keep springing up or exist in that area? I did find — and this was an exciting read last night. Find the sarcasm. — Rhode Island’s Office of Waste Management.
MARISA: At the DEM, right?
CLARICE: At the DEM.
MARISA: That’s a division of DEM, yeah.
CLARICE: Yeah. They put out a — and this was back in 2000, so I couldn’t find something that was as clear instructions, or I couldn’t find additional updates. If there are any let me know. But, basically, they came up with a remediation regulation plan and the plan consisted of three tiers.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: And each tier depends on how much arsenic they’re finding in the soil. So if you are — let me see. Let me get to Tier 1. If you’re between .17 PPM to .4 PPM, you’re Tier 1. You’re at the lowest level. And then one thing I did like about the memo, it was a pretty clear read. It was like these are the steps you follow, this is what we’re going to ask of you and this is how we — at this point it sounds like maintain these lower levels. It then goes up to Tier 2 for the seven PPM and then, lastly, Tier 3 is above seven PPM and that’s basically a big — not a big problem but the most effort that you’re going to need to do. That’s the most work.
MARISA: You’re talking in terms of parts per million. The materials that I’m familiar with talk about the mean concentrations of arsenic in milligrams per kilograms. So without a calculator here to make that easy conversion, I just wanted to throw out that on Aquidneck Island the mean arsenic concentrations are 12 milligrams per kilogram and 11 milligrams per kilogram in site and background soils respectively. So this particular study that I was reading, the mean arsenic concentration was 12 milligrams per kilogram at the particular location like the project site and then 11.7 milligrams per kilogram generally in background soils on the island so pretty close.
I mean, that’s a relatively high concentration of arsenic. And the other statistic this study gives is that both of these readings are about four times higher than the background level of 2.7 milligrams per kilogram published by DEM as being their risk-based concentration that you should be concerned with, you know, and that starts to raise flags for regulation.
[0:09:47] CLARICE: It’s four times higher.
MARISA: Four times higher.
CLARICE: Oh, no.
MARISA: Yeah. And we’re all just exiting on the island. So what’s the problem with arsenic? You know, what’s the deal? Do we have to like eat the soil to have an issue?
CLARICE: So from what I saw, it doesn’t — what I love is this memo doesn’t go into what the effects are other than saying, arsenic is a human carcinogen and it can lead to — and it felt like the end like a medication commercial.
MARISA: Oh.
CLARICE: It was like, my cause nausea, vomiting, upset — and like it went through the whole thing.
MARISA: Yeah. Yeah.
CLARICE: Yes. I was about to do the Pepto commercial. But essentially it just says —
MARISA: So it causes cancer?
CLARICE: It eventually could lead to cancer, liver, or kidney issues, but it doesn’t talk about the amount of exposure, the extent of exposure. Is it something where as you’re digging the arsenic is becoming —
MARISA: Airborne.
CLARICE: — you know, airborne and you’re breathing it in?
MARISA: And then how long do you have to be exposed to that element before it’s a risk.
CLARICE: Exactly.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: Exactly. At no point did the article say you can’t walk around with your bare feet, but I’m sure anybody would say don’t eat dirt.
MARISA: If you learn nothing else —
CLARICE: Don’t eat dirt, kids.
MARISA: — don’t eat dirt. And in my experience the way that contaminated soils are dealt with is just something called — not just because it’s important — but something call a soil management plan or an SMP.
CLARICE: Yes.
MARISA: And any time there’s construction that goes on at a contaminated site, the DEM wants to know that you’ve got both engineered controls on the site and a policy and process that the individuals doing the work onsite are aware of knowing that the site cannot be moved from the contamination to, let’s say, like a pristine, uncontaminated property somewhere else. The soil has to stay onsite.
CLARICE: Yeah. So I guess going back to the Washington Bridge, in your experience with the Sakonnet Bridge how much extra time did this take? Was this a huge derailment? Was it manageable? What was that like?
MARISA: It takes time. Environmental issues take time and arsenic is not the only pollutant of concern, I’m sure. Those pilings from the Washington Street Bridge are, I imagine, at depth where they go into the ground, but that’s all coastline. It’s muddy. Pulling that infrastructure out is not going to be easy. I don’t know historically what that area was used for, but it’s on the water, so I imagine you’re dealing with some of the same issues that you are dealing with on Allens Ave. with heavy metals and potentially some other polyaromatic hydrocarbons or stuff associated with industry.
[0:12:50] CLARICE: Yeah.
MARISA: So we know we’re going to have to deal with arsenic. It’s probably not going to be as high as it is on Aquidneck Island, but you’re still going to have to test for it and monitor it. Generally speaking, Rhode Island, the remediation factor is that the soil has to stay onsite and people can’t be exposed to it in a certain way for a certain amount of time, so I imagine that will be what happens with the Washington Street Bridge. But it’s time consuming just getting the studies done and approval from DEM.
CLARICE: And let’s not forget when you were talking about heavy metals it brought me back to one of our older episodes about the crane that’s never been pulled out of that area.
MARISA: Oh, yeah. I remember that one, yeah.
CLARICE: Yeah. Again, for folks who aren’t in Rhode Island, that crane is — you can see it off of the Washington Bridge. It’s pretty close. So, you know, there’s the idea of testing for heavy metals and what’s that doing and then I’m sure the crane’s not helping.
MARISA: Why is that crane there? Was it used for something a long time ago?
CLARICE: No. The crane ended up — it ended up falling into the river and the company responsible for it — unfortunately, the owner had died and the business went bankrupt, so there was not enough funds for them to pay to pull it out.
MARISA: So we just left it there.
CLARICE: Well, I think there’s been several efforts to pull it out and it’s just getting more and more expensive and there’s not enough money for the state to allocate to pulling the crane out.
MARISA: Well, maybe they could apply for a grant as part of this disaster of the bridge, anyway.
CLARICE: I mean, shoot, while you’re there get that thing out.
MARISA: Okay. So arsenic, it exists naturally. It’s a naturally occurring element and there’s also additional concentrations from man-made practices, but at least on Aquidneck Island it just exists at a very high level. Oh, the other thing I wanted to add is this year’s senate legislative session includes the introduction of a bill that would allow for cleanup of arsenic at construction sites at a — I think it’s a 20 milligram per kilogram value which is a lot higher than what DEM currently requires. And the rationale for that is that Massachusetts is using that standard, a higher standard and it would benefit development and redevelopment for them not to have to figure out what to do with arsenic contaminated soil.
[0:15:40] CLARICE: Nice. I like that little bit of uniformity, make it easier, especially with so many projects near each other. So I guess the moral is don’t panic about arsenic in the soil.
MARISA: I mean, don’t eat it.
CLARICE: Don’t eat it.
MARISA: And, also, don’t panic.
CLARICE: Yeah. Don’t eat dirt at all.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: That’s our takeaway.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: Happy Friday, guys. Don’t eat dirt.
MARISA: Thanks, everybody. Bye. Oh, no. We got to do the information at the end.
CLARICE: Oh, yes. If you want to learn more about not eating dirt and other things with the environment, we have our episodes on all podcast platforms. You can find us on social media on Instagram, X, and Facebook. And you can e-mail Marisa about this topic at info@DesautelBrowning.com.
MARISA: Oh, nice job. Nice job.
CLARICE: Yes. Nailed it.
MARISA: Thanks, everybody.
CLARICE: Bye.
