BNSF Lays Plans to Improve Groundwater Treatment at Whitefish Superfund Site

Although the BNSF investigation and response to an oil sheen discovered April 10 in the Whitefish River is ongoing, the discovery has prompted the railway company to consider designing a long-term solution to supplement its existing methods for treating groundwater carrying petroleum products to the local waterway, which flows past a state Superfund site on BNSF property.

A spokesperson for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) shared on Thursday that it’s too early to determine a complete timeline for designing and implementing a permanent supplement to BNSF’s existing system for capturing contamination from its rail yard along the Whitefish River, but that groundwater pumping and other interim measures will be maintained in the meantime.

BNSF has determined that snow melt conditions this year allowed for groundwater to come into contact with petroleum through sections of sandy gravel not previously identified in the area, resulting in the sheen materializing on the river; however, no measurable amounts of petroleum were detected in the river, according to the Montana DEQ.

Amy McBeth, the regional public affairs director for BNSF, said in an email Friday that her organization is continuing to “design work for a long-term solution,” and that BNSF is working in consultation with Montana DEQ.  Long-term remedial actions could take several weeks to complete, according to McBeth.

Amid the initial response to the sheen’s detection, the city of Whitefish announced closures along a bike and pedestrian path between Miles Avenue and Edgewood Place along the river, and at the Roundhouse Landing River Access.

Lena Kent, the BNSF general director of public affairs, said last week that there had been no reported spills or releases in the BNSF rail yard, and that the sheen was not related to any current railroad operations.

Since last week, BNSF has installed along the shoreline a boom containing absorbent materials to contain the sheen, and has also installed a silt fence. Contractors have excavated test pits to identify and trace sandy gravel sections within the nearby clay soils, and throughout the area, in an effort to better understand how the existing interceptor trench is functioning. Test pits near the interceptor trench revealed contaminated groundwater, which BNSF has been pumping and then processing through its wastewater treatment system for the rail yard, according to DEQ. As part of its ongoing work, BNSF also installed a coffer dam along the shoreline to further entrap the area where the sheen was observed, and a vacuum truck has been used to remove water within the dam and allow for shoreline sediment excavation.

DEQ reports that BNSF has removed “impacted sediments” going down 4 feet deep in a roughly 10 foot by 8 foot area. A nearby boat ramp was also removed to allow for better observation, according to DEQ.

The 78-acre superfund site in Whitefish has been a locomotive fueling and repair facility since 1903, and releases associated with fueling repair, railroad operations, and wastewater transportations to the lagoons have been identified as the causes of soil and groundwater contamination by harmful chemicals substances including petroleum products, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and heavy metals.

BNSF installed an interceptor trench in 1973 to capture contamination moving towards the river, and additional cleanup work took place between 2009 and 2013 to remove contaminated sediment from the river. Additional excavation and removal of contaminated soil took place in July 2019 along a stretch of river near Railway Street and Miles Avenue after an oil sheen was discovered, at which point the interceptor trench was evaluated to ensure its continued operation, according to DEQ.