Community Information Open House

June 12, 2008

Lockheed Martin held an open house on June 12 at the former Loral American Beryllium Company (ABC) plant at 1600 Tallevast Road in Tallevast to provide details about the building dismantlement and soil excavation project that will begin at the site this summer.

Representatives from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), a handful of Tallevast residents and the community's technical consultants attended the open house. Across the street, about 20 residents protested the event.

After a delay in the event because of torrential rains, remediation experts stood near posters that described every step of the cleaning, dismantlement and excavation work that will be done between mid-June and late October.

Attendees received a detailed fact sheet with information about the project, and they had an opportunity to ask questions about the project and view the equipment that will be used.

The ABC facility was operated by Loral Metals Technology as a machining and metalworking plant from 1961 to 1996. Lockheed Martin acquired Loral in 1996 and assumed ownership of the facility. Lockheed Martin closed the site that same year, then discovered the presence of volatile organic compounds in shallow groundwater at the site when it sold the property in 2000. Lockheed Martin assumed responsibility for the environmental cleanup.

According to experts at the open house, the purpose of the project is to access and remove the soil with the highest concentration of contaminants. Buildings 4 and 5 will be dismantled and removed to provide access to the soil beneath them. After the dismantlement, impacted soil will be excavated and removed from the site.

Tallevast residents at the event, as well as those protesting across the street, expressed concerns about health risks from airborne dust, disruptions from project noise, the impact on children at the local Community Center, and the need for detailed contingency plans in the event of an emergency.

Residents said it felt good to receive information about the upcoming project, but they expressed concern at the amount of time it was taking to move forward with the overall cleanup. Wanda Washington felt more information was needed to answer health and safety concerns and thought a community meeting with detailed papers handed out first would be a logical next step. Laura Ward felt Lockheed had the start of a plan in place, and said that for health and safety, a contingency plan was needed in case of an unexpected emergency.

"We are listening to the community's concerns and addressing them," said Lockheed Martin spokesperson Gail Rymer. "Our technical teams are ensuring that the work is done safely and with as little noise as possible. The open house served as a community meeting, and the fact sheet we distributed answered many questions regarding procedures and contingency plans."

At the open house, Lockheed Martin experts explained that:

  • The interiors of the buildings will be cleared and then cleaned with HEPA-filtered vacuums and commercial cleaners to remove all dust.
  • Any remaining interior building components will be coated with a liquid sealant before dismantling begins.
  • A high curtain wall will be put in place to contain dismantlement debris.
  • Air quality will be monitored by the community's technical specialists.
  • Water will be drained from the excavated soil, and the water will be treated by the existing on-site water-treatment system.
  • After the draining process, the soil - about 200 truckloads - will be transported in double-lined and covered truck beds to a Class 1 landfill.
  • Clean soil will be trucked in to replace the soil that was removed.
  • All dump trucks will be routed through the neighboring golf course property rather than through the Tallevast community.
  • Noise will be limited to 85 decibels for no longer than 10 seconds - the equivalent of an average walk-behind lawn mower - throughout the project.

Attendees at the open house also had an opportunity to see the on-site groundwater treatment system that has treated millions of gallons since 2006 and to view the air-monitoring system that the community's technical consultants will operate throughout the project.

"We understand the community's concerns, and we are doing everything we can to address them," Rymer said. "From a community outreach standpoint, we are doing things like offering funding for the children at the Community Center to go on daily field trips and to other activities while the work is being done at the site, and from a remediation standpoint, we continue to go to great lengths to ensure contaminants are not released into the air, the water or the soil."

Download the building fact sheet »
View a slideshow of the dismantling »