Welcome to the St. Juliens Creek Annex
Installation Restoration Program and Munitions Response Program
This web site is part of the Navy's active efforts to provide accurate, timely and comprehensive information on the environmental Installation Restoration Program (IRP) and Munitions Response Program (MRP) currently in action at St. Juliens Creek Annex (SJCA) in Chesapeake, VA.
BACKGROUND
SJCA is a 490-acre facility situated at the confluence of St. Juliens Creek and the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River in the City of Chesapeake, located in southeastern Virginia. The facility is bordered to the north by the Norfolk and Western Railroad, the City of Portsmouth, and residential areas; to the west by residential areas; to the south by St. Juliens Creek; and to the east by the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard is located approximately 1.5 miles to the north.
SJCA began operations as a Naval facility in 1849. In the past, operations at SJCA have included general ordnance operations involving wartime transfer of ammunitions to various other U.S. Naval facilities throughout the United States and abroad. In addition, the Annex has been involved in specific ordnance operations and processes including those involving black powder operations, smokeless powder operations, projectile loading operations, mine loading, tracer mixing, testing operations, and decontamination operations. All ordnance related activities at SJCA have been discontinued.
SJCA has also been involved in non-ordnance services, including degreasing; operation of paint shops, machine shops, vehicle and locomotive maintenance shops, pest control shops, battery shops, print shops, electrical shops, boiler plants, wash racks, and potable water and salt water fire-protection systems; fire-fighter training; and storage of oil and chemicals.
Activity at SJCA has decreased in recent years and many of the aging structures are being demolished. The current primary mission of SJCA is to provide a radar-testing range and administrative and warehousing facilities for nearby Norfolk Naval Shipyard and other local Naval activities. SJCA also provides light industrial shops and storage facilities for several tenant commands; including Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), Defense Revitalization and Marketing Office (DRMO), Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintanence Center (MARMAC); and a cryogenics school.
ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Installation Restoration Program
In 1975, the Department of Defense (DoD) initiated the Navy Assessment
and Control of Installation Pollutants (NACIP) Program. The purpose of the NACIP Program was to identify, assess, characterize, and clean up or control contamination from past waste management activities at Navy and Marine Corps facilities. Previously, waste (solvents, waste oil, scrap metal and lumber) was disposed of using methods that were acceptable at the time.
Changing times brought new regulations and new approaches to waste disposal. SJCA
initiated its environmental restoration, study, and investigation efforts under
the NACIP Program by conducting an Initial Assessment Study (IAS) in 1981.
In 1976 Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) designed to manage present and future disposal of hazardous wastes. The first step under the RCRA corrective action process, a RCRA Facility Assessment (RFA), was conducted at SJCA in 1989.
In 1980,
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
(CERCLA) , or the "Superfund" Act, was passed to investigate and remediate areas resulting from past hazardous waste management practices. In 1983 a Preliminary Assessment (PA), the first step in the CERCLA process, was conducted at SJCA. The NACIP program was changed in 1986 to reflect the requirements of the CERCLA as amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act
(SARA). This revised program is referred to as the IRP. The current IRP is consistent with CERCLA and applicable state environmental laws.
Based on the results of a Hazard Ranking System (HRS), SJCA was listed on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) National Priorities List (NPL) in July 2000. Following inclusion of SJCA on the NPL, the SJCA IR Partnering Team was chartered to streamline the clean up of the former disposal sites by using consensus-based site management strategies during the CERCLA process. The team consists of representatives from the Navy, USEPA, and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) . A
Federal Facilities Agreement (FFA) , negotiated between the Navy, USEPA, and VDEQ, was signed in July 2004. Under the FFA, all past and future work at IRP sites,
Solid Waste Management Units (SWMUs), and
Areas of Concern (AOCs) will be reviewed and a course of action for future work requirements at each site will be developed.
Munitions Response Program
The Department of Defense has established the MRP under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program to address munitions and explosives of concern (MEC) and munitions constituents (MC) at sites other than operational ranges. The Department of Defense and the Navy are establishing policy and guidance for munitions and response actions under the MRP; however, the key program drivers developed to date include that munitions response actions will be conducted under the process outlined in the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Control Contingency Plan (NCP), as authorized by CERCLA. Therefore, the Navy will work with the SJCA IR Partnering Team to followthe CERCLA process to address MRP sites identified at SJCA.
