AN ASSESSMENT OF THE ACTIVE AND LEGACY POLLUTION OF THE COAL TERMINAL IN NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

Norfolk, Virginia has been the home of a large coal terminal since 1885. It is situated at the bank of Elizabeth River, in the vicinity of Lamberts Point neighborhood. The terminal loads' ocean-going vessels with Appalachian coal, that is eventually used for forging steel. The terminal uses stored rail cars to transport the coal from Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These rail cars are referred to by dumpsters by the terminals, to rotate and dump the car to unload the coal onto conveyor belts. The coal is then transported on the belt to the pier and operating without any restriction and monitoring of the fugitive dust. This is probably because the terminal was built before the Clean Air Act of 1970 and was grandfathered in. In 2013, the state Department of Environmental Quality estimated that nearly 90,000 pounds of coal dust blew off the site. DEQ is certain of the fact that most of the dust comes from the rotary dumpsters before it was common to enclose them. In 2015, the Sierra Club has found that 20-70% of the particles collected from five homes, were coal particles, though the terminal has published studies stating that coal dust is within regulation levels to the health department, though there are report of respiratory diseases among the inhabitants of neighboring localities and physical presence of coal particles everywhere in the areas surrounding of the terminal, which demand a more systematic assessment of the present state of active pollution, in the light of legacy pollution of the coal terminal.

Intact undisturbed core samples were collected from the locations in the flooded areas, as proximal as possible, in order to assess the lateral and vertical extent of coal accumulation in the soil and analyzed by XRF, SEM and CN analysis) to determine the percentage of the coal particles in different depths and to determine the concentration of toxic metals. The results of present research will provide a firsthand information on the state of soil pollution from the coal terminal, that will be beneficial in formulating the remediation strategy for the public health issues. Moreover, assessment of the legacy pollution will be useful for further investigations to make an inventory of the historical coal terminal, which might be responsible for the toxic metal run off into the nearby natural waterways.