NSF PR 01-13 - February 23, 2001
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Peter West
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pwest@nsf.gov
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Antarctic Remediation Underway
A joint U.S and New Zealand team has completed an environmental
survey of a former Antarctic research station at Cape
Hallett and has recommended steps to safeguard penguin
chicks at a nearby rookery from melt pools contaminated
with oil from an unknown source.
The team discovered the pools during a site visit in
late January, undertaken under the auspices of the
U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP), to assess measures
needed to complete a clean-up of the station that
was begun by New Zealand in the mid-1980s.
The four-person team -- which consisted of a biologist,
an environmental officer for Antarctica New Zealand,
and two environmental specialists employed by Raytheon
Polar Services, of Englewood, Colo., NSF's Antarctic
logistics contractor -- took photographs and soil
samples at the site over an 18-day period.
As the assessment was underway, the team discovered
a number of Adelie penguin chicks whose feathers appeared
to be contaminated with oil. The source of the contamination
appears to be petroleum residue in about a dozen small
melt pools on the site. The source of the contamination
is as yet unknown.
Although no longer an active research station, Cape
Hallett is a frequent stop for tour ships. Tourists
are drawn to the area because the Adelie colony contains
as many as 50,000 breeding pairs of adult penguins
and their chicks. Only a small number of penguin chicks
were observed to have been contaminated with oil.
In the mid-1990's, remediation teams discovered a 20,000-gallon
fuel tank and several smaller tanks at the Cape Hallett
station containing fuel that had been left when the
station was closed down in 1973.
Subsequently, over a two-year period, the tanks were
pumped dry and the fuel removed from the site. Joyce
Jatko, the U.S. Antarctic Program's environmental
officer, said that the remediation team reported no
evidence of contaminated melt pools or of oiled birds
at the time.
Jatko added that materials will be sent to Cape Hallett
at the earliest opportunity to fence off the pools
during the penguin-breeding season when the chicks
are most likely to become fouled.
Additonal steps will be taken to remediate the fuel
contamination.
Hallett Station was operated jointly by New Zealand
and the United States from the International Geophysical
Year (IGY) in 1957 to February 1973 on the eastern
side of Cape Hallett. It was operated as a year-round
research station until 1964, when the main scientific
laboratory was destroyed by fire.
Hallett was then used as a summer-only research station
until 1973, when it was closed. The station was initially
occupied for the study of geophysics, but after the
IGY, Hallett was primarily used to study biology and
Adelie penguins in particular.
For a fact sheet on the U.S. Antarctic Program, see:
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/media/99/fs_usap.htm
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