Ongoing legacy contamination from a military radar station in Iceland: a case study

Abstract

Contamination in and around military radar stations in the Arctic has been an ongoing concern since first identified in the 1980s. This study reports on the environmental impact from a DEW line US military station that was operated on Heiðarfjall mountain in northeast Iceland from 1957 to 1970. This review is conducted as a part of work of the POPs Expert Group of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) for an assessment report on local sources vs. long-range transport of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in the Arctic. The main resource for this summary is an evaluation of results from several reports on Heiðarfjall Langanes, one from an Icelandic Environmental Authority in 1993 and another from the Canadian Environmental Science Group (ESG) at the Royal Military College of Canada, which was commissioned in 2017 by the owners of the land that was used for the station. The results are compared to findings in scientific papers and reports for contamination at other military radar stations in Canada and Alaska. This review shows considerable contamination on Heiðarfjall over 50 years after the closure of the station and is consistent with findings at other former military stations of the same era and with recent preliminary results from environmental investigation by the Norwegian Geological Institute (NGI). The dump area has around 13 thousand m³ of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs), lead, mercury and tin. The communication area and surrounding are contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), lead and mercury. In other areas storing oil, soil samples reveal elevated concentrations of PHCs. New monitoring results by NGI with passive water samplers show PCBs 20-fold above the guideline value in a water source below Heiðarfjall, and the prediction and dispersion model indicated an increased concentration of PCBs there for decades to come. From new knowledge on the impact of climate change on the release of contaminants as POPs, it can be concluded that there is a need for further cleanup of the area. The potential for future releases due to climate warming should be included in risk assessments of contaminated military and industrial sites in the Arctic.