24 Bases with reported TCE water contamination
(Source: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry)

New Brighton/ Arden Hills (Army)

New Brighton, MN

NEW BRIGHTON/ARDEN HILLS
(a/k/a U.S. ARMY TWIN CITIES AMMUNITION PLANT)
NEW BRIGHTON, RAMSEY COUNTY, MINNESOTA
EPA FACILITY ID: MN7213820908
May 24, 1994
Prepared by:
Division of Health Assessment and Consultation
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

SPECIAL NOTE FOR PEOPLE USING NEW BRIGHTON OR ST. ANTHONY MUNICIPAL WATER SUPPLIES OR TWIN CITIES ARMY AMMUNTION PLANT WATER SUPPLIES THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH HAS REVIEWED THE TESTS OF THE MUNICIPAL WATER SUPPLIES FOR NEW BRIGHTON, ST. ANTHONY, AND THE TWIN CITIES ARMY AMMUNITION PLANT (TCAAP) AND HAS FOUND THAT THOSE SUPPLIES ARE IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH ALL STATE AND FEDERAL DRINKING WATER STANDARDS. FROM INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, THE CITY OF NEW BRIGHTON, THE MINNESOTA POLLUTION CONTROL AGENCY, THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, AND THE U.S. ARMY, HEALTH ASSESSORS DO NOT IDENTIFY ANY CURRENT OR FUTURE HEALTH HAZARDS FOR USERS OF MUNICIPAL WATER SUPPLIES IN THE CITIES NAMED.
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The New Brighton/Arden Hills National Priorities List (NPL) Site is a 25-square-mile area in Ramsey County, Minnesota, just north of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. The site includes the 4-square-mile Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant (TCAAP) and portions of seven nearby communities: New Brighton, St. Anthony, Arden Hills, Shoreview, Mounds View, Columbia Heights, and Minneapolis. As presently defined, the site covers much of the U.S. Geological Survey's New Brighton, Minnesota, 7.5-minute quadrangle map.
In June 1981, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) discovered trichloroethylene (TCE) and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in municipal, mobile home park, and private well water in the vicinity of TCAAP. Initial analysis of TCAAP water supply wells revealed high concentrations of TCE (720 parts per billion [ppb), 1,1,1-trichloroethane (360 ppb), 1,1-dichloroethane (130 ppb), and other VOCs.
Scientists with MPCA and MDH worked with all involved parties to identify contaminated wells and, when possible, to reduce the concentrations of contaminants below state and federal drinking water standards or to provide alternative water supplies. However, some people using private wells and mobile home park wells may have continued to use contaminated well water for 2 to 3 years before their homes were connected to alternative water supplies.
In May 1987, 15 families petitioned the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to conduct a public health assessment of TCAAP for populations exposed to hazardous substances from TCAAP. ATSDR agreed to conduct the public health assessment in conjunction with the public health assessment of the New Brighton/Arden Hills NPL site. Therefore, this public health assessment addresses the contaminants and the health concerns of people affected by contaminants from TCAAP. Some of the health concerns expressed by people living near TCAAP include past exposures to contaminated drinking water and the possibility of adverse health effects, such as birth defects and leukemia.
From its review of available data, ATSDR concludes that hazardous waste sites within TCAAP are public health hazards because people were exposed in the past to groundwater contaminants at concentrations that may cause adverse health effects. People were exposed to solvents via ingestion, inhalation, and skin contact when contaminants from TCAAP migrated into private, mobile home park, commercial, industrial, TCAAP, and municipal water supply wells. Human exposure to TCAAP contaminants in municipal and TCAAP water supply wells was ended with the use of comprehensive water treatment technology. Current municipal water supplies used by the cities surrounding TCAAP, as well as the TCAAP water supply system, meet all state and federal drinking water standards.
The concentrations measured in some of the contaminated private wells were high enough that long-term exposure (greater than 1 year) to those concentrations could have resulted in adverse health effects. Exposure ended for many of the people with contaminated private wells when their homes were connected to municipal water supplies in the early 1980s.
Nonetheless, other water supplies may be threatened. Unless they are remediated, concentrations of TCAAP contaminants in the Hillside Sand and Prairie du Chien/Jordan aquifers will remain above levels of health concern for many years. The contaminants continue to move and to contaminate other portions of the two drinking water aquifers.
TCAAP groundwater contaminants also pose an indeterminate health hazard because people may be exposed to TCAAP contaminants now or in the future as a result of the unreported or unidentified use of private, mobile home park, commercial, and industrial wells within two plumes of contamination, the North Plume and the South Plume. MPCA, MDH and the Army have undertaken special efforts to identify all wells threatened by TCAAP contaminants. In addition to past inventories and monitoring by MPCA, the Army has conducted a detailed well inventory, at MPCA's request, to determine if there are any previously unidentified water supply wells threatened by TCAAP contaminants.
The possibility of current and future human exposure to TCAAP groundwater contaminants from the North Plume will be mitigated for private well users through implementation of the selected remedy for Operable Unit 1, which was proposed by the Army, MPCA, and the Environmental Protection Agency in September 1993. As described in the Background section of this document, the remedy includes the use of drilling advisories that regulate the installation of new wells within the North Plume as a Special Well Construction Area and the provision of alternative water supplies to residents with private wells within the North Plume. The proposed containment system will prevent future movement of the most highly contaminated portion of the groundwater contaminant plume.
MPCA has stated that the South Plume will also be contained in the Special Well Construction Area (48).

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