Nomans Land Island - Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup (BWSC) Activities

DEP Activities - The DEP's Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup provides oversight at oil and hazardous waste disposal sites in Massachusetts by implementing Massachusetts General Law Chapter 21E and the Massachusetts Contingency Plan  (310 CMR 40.0000).  

One of these disposal sites is the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station (NAS), which included Nomans Land Island as a remote naval air bombardment and gunnery training range.  South Weymouth NAS was also placed on the National Priorities List as a federal Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1994.  However, this listing did not include Nomans Land Island.  Through BWSC, DEP provides state support to EPA at South Weymouth NAS and is the lead agency in providing regulatory oversight at Nomans Land Island. 

Congress designated South Weymouth NAS, including Nomans Land Island, as one of the military bases to be closed under what is known as the Base Realignment and Closure IV (BRAC IV) process and directed the U.S. Department of Defense to initiate the BRAC transition. South Weymouth was also subject to remediation under state and federal regulations.  Portions of the site were proposed for property transfer to third parties.  Nomans Land Island is remotely located and was not part of the National Priority List designation. The Island was managed as a separate parcel for property transfer.

Under the BRAC process, the Department of the Navy is directed by the U.S. Department of Defense to manage the property disposal.  The protocol for this disposal gives first claim consideration to other federal parties interested  in receiving the parcels before giving consideration to non-federal parties. The Navy began the transfer process and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressed interest in receiving the Nomans Land Island  property. Concurrently, the Navy initiated UXO surface clearance and preliminary site assessment.

DEP believed that conditions at Nomans Land Island required further investigations of the potential human health and environmental risk.  Prior to the reassignment of the island to the U.S. Department of Interior, DEP issued  Notices of Responsibility (NOR) to the U.S. Navy on September 26, 1997 and after the reassignment of the island, to the USFWS on June 12, 2000.  

In the course of the property transfer negotiations, the USFWS and the Navy agreed that the Navy would assume the lead role in performing environmental assessment and response actions.   The Navy was issued a Tier 1B Permit,  conducted two Release Abatement Measures (RAMs), and  initiated Phase II Comprehensive Site Assessment activities.

The pictures above and below represent the surface condition of the island prior to and during the 1998 ordnance and debris surface clearance. Phase I Preliminary Site Assessment activities were concluded and documented in a Phase I Report dated October 1998. Five known targets within three target areas were identified. Initial site investigations were concentrated in these areas. Conventional technologies employing man-carried magnetometers and flag positioning (so-called 'mag and flag') were used to clear work areas and to allow the safe removal of visible debris in these areas. Prior to clearance activities, two controlled burns were conducted to reduce vegetative cover so that surface ordnance and related debris could be more easily seen. While extensive, the vegetative burns were incomplete, and the acreage burned has not been reported.

Activities included two Release Abatement Measures: one for an Underground Storage Tank (UST) and related debris removal, and one for Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and ordnance debris removal.