EPA Hazmat.wmv  created Jan. 22, 2010   1:58

Graphic:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency returned to American Samoa in January 2010 to complete removal of hazardous materials related to the tsunami disaster.

Chris Reiner, EPA Federal On-Scene Coordinator:
This is our second visit to American Samoa in response to the Tsunami. The first visit we came about a day and a half after the tsunami struck and began collecting hazardous materials under an ESF-10 mission assignment from FEMA. 

And we swept the whole island multiple times collecting mostly things, sort of hazardous household waste things you'd find under the kitchen sink as well as some larger materials from some of the businesses that were impacted. 

We are consolidating things, trying to make stuff fit in as little space as possible in preparing to get it shipped off the island and recycled or disposed of properly. We'll be loading all the materials into drums and other packages and putting them into shipping containers. 

They'll get shipped off and its going to different places. The materials we can recycle are the batteries, for example are going to go to recover the metals. So there are a few other materials, motor oils and things that we'll be able to recycle, and then some of the more hazardous chemicals that will be sent for disposal.

The basis for our timing and this particular return to the island is we already had some work we were going to be doing here; neutralizing some cylinders of chlorine, dealing with some pesticides that are being collected by American Samoa EPA that we'll also be shipping off island and dealing with on the mainland. 

So we combined out visit for the tsunami, the completion of the tsunami work, with this collection effort and the neutralization efforts related to some of the chemicals that were not related to the tsunami.

When we're done with this we will have addressed the hazmat concerns generated as a result of the tsunami, as well as a range of other hazmat concerns that we had identified prior to the tsunami in relations to pesticides and some other chemicals on the island. 

So we will leave this place a lot cleaner than it was when we got here.

Graphic:
www.fema.gov