Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
2/2/2015
The Army Corps of Engineers is requesting $104 million for its formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) in Fiscal Year 2016, according to Corps budget documents released today. The request would marks a $2.5 million increase from the program’s total current funding level of $101.5 million, and a $4 million increase from the Corps’ FY15 budget request for FUSRAP.
The major active sites in FUSRAP would receive the largest funding amounts in FY16 under the Corps’ budget request. For the Maywood Site in New Jersey, the request proposes $35.55 million, up $2.5 million from last year’s request. Cleanup activities at Maywood currently focus on soil and groundwater remediation, and FUSRAP estimates it will take an additional $258 million to $269 million to complete the cleanup, bring the estimated total cost to somewhere between $930 million and $940 million.
The Shallow Land Disposal Area in Armstrong County, Pa., meanwhile, would receive the second-largest funding amount in the Corps’ FY 2016 request, with an allocation of $18 million, down $2 million from the requested $20 million in 2015. The SLDA site is one of the larger projects in FUSRAP. USACE is currently working on amending the Record of Decision for the site, with a completion date set for this summer. According to a recently released proposed ROD, the cost of the cleanup has jumped to $350 million under an increased 46-month timeline. Following the ROD amendment completion, the agency plans to issue a Request for Proposals for the remediation contract for the site this summer and award the new contract by early 2016. On-site infrastructure construction is planned for 2016, and the Corps hopes to begin excavation in 2017.
The Corps’ FY 16 request also includes:
— $1.5 million for the St. Louis Airport Site, up $1.45 million from the FY15 request;
— $8.95 million for the New Jersey DuPont Chambers Works, up $2.66 million from the FY15 request;
— $3.35 million for the Luckey Site in Ohio, up $1.3 million from the FY15 request; and
— $1 million each for the Middlesex Municipal Landfill site and Middlesex Sampling Plant in New Jersey, up $800,000 and $995,000 from the FY15 request, respectively.
Most Western New York Sites Would See Flat Funding
Most of the cluster of FUSRAP sites in Western New York, though, would see relatively flat funding under the Corps’ request, with the exception of the Towawanda Landfill, which would be funded at $500,000, up $100,000 from the FY 15 request. The Corps’ FY16 request would match last year’s requests of $3.6 million for the Niagara Falls Storage Site, $400,000 for the Guterl Specialty Steel Site and $200,000 for the Seaway Industrial Park site. The Corps budget proposes $250,000 for the Linda Air Products site for next year, half of what the Corps requested for the site in FY15.
