KV-1 Site, Saipan
The KV-1 Site is public land approximately 31,000 square meters located at the southern end of Saipan in the village of Kobler. The site is currently undeveloped, but surrounded by both undeveloped and residential private lands. The site is within the Kobler well field aquifer, which is one of largest well field on island. Historically, during the Japanese occupation of Saipan, the site may have been farmed for sugar cane as there was a large sugar cane mill operation at the time.
Free-product petroleum hydrocarbons (free product), previously identified as avgas, have been documented in the KV-1 well located in southern Saipan. The likely source is previous military operations on the island during the World War II (WWII) era, but the nature and location of the source are unknown. The KV-1 well lies within the Kobler Wellfield, an area where the aquifer is used as a drinking water source for the island of Saipan.
KV-1 Site was acquired March 1976, the signing of the USA and CNMI Covenant Agreement, KV-1 Site was acquired along with the rest of the Northern Mariana Islands (NMI) in 1976 through a Covenant Agreement established between the NMI and the United States (US) making the NMI a political commonwealth of the US. As part of the agreement, the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) government transferred all public lands to the CNMI.
Prior to the onset of WW II, the Japanese military had begun a construction of an airfield in the Kobler area, but was never completed. Soon after the invasion and capture of Saipan during WW II, the U.S. military completed the construction of what was known as the Kobler Airfield. After the ending of WW II in 1945, the US Naval Administration took control of the Northern Mariana Islands, including Saipan. The Naval Administration ended around 1962, and the TTPI Administration was established under the U.S. Department of the Interior. The TTPI Administration ended in 1976 when the U.S. Government entered into a Covenant Agreement making the NMI a political commonwealth of the U.S. As part of the agreement, the U.S. TTPI government transferred all public lands to the CNMI.
The Northern Mariana Islands were acquired involuntarily, upon the execution of the Covenant agreement between the U.S. government and the NMI government. Based on our best information, this site has been undeveloped since the time of the U.S. TTPI government until now. This was confirmed with the DPL office based from their land lease records.
On July 1991, the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation (CUC) during a routine exploratory well drilling discovered petroleum product to be floating on top of the groundwater table. Following the discovery of the fuel product at the site, on June 1992, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed an Inventory Preliminary Assessment Report (INPR) determining the site to be eligible for the Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) Program, but indicated the site did not have any visual surface contamination and therefore no further action is warranted; since then, the FUDS program has not been involved in the on-going investigation of the site. DEQ is concerned with the finding of the petroleum product contamination in the groundwater at the site and believes that further investigation is warranted because of the potential of the contamination to impact the nearby Kobler well field.
In 1995, DEQ conducted a small scale investigation, collecting sample of the blue fuel product with funding support from EPA. In 2005, DEQ extracted around 3 gallons of the fuel product from the KV-1 exploratory well. In 2007 and 2009, DEQ and EPA installed monitoring wells for monitoring the plume and development of a site conceptual model for the site. At the present time, the site has 8 monitoring wells installed for petroleum plume monitoring. The most recent groundwater data from 2009 is showing that the petroleum plume is moving towards the well fields within the Kobler aquifer. These previous activities were funded through funding sources identified from the federal facility program of EPA R9 through the effort of the EPA FUDS Program coordinator. The funds available were “end of the year” monies that were made available for FUDS related sites.
Category: Brownfields
Coordinates: N-15.129319; E-145.712222
Island: Saipan
Village: Koblerville
Response Status: June 1992, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed an Inventory Preliminary Assessment Report (INPR); In 1995, DEQ conducted a small scale investigation collecting sample of the blue fuel product; In 2007 and 2009, DEQ and EPA installed 8 monitoring wells for monitoring the plume and development of a site conceptual model for the site; In June 2011 a sampling event had been conducted and data results are pending; and the latest sampling and monitoring well installation event was in October 8-26, 2012, data results are pending and one monitoring well was installed.
Land Use Restrictions: Village Residential
Institutional Control(s): None
Responsible Party: Undetermined
Enforcement Authority: Division of Environmental Quality; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Coordinates: N-15.129319; E-145.712222
Island: Saipan
Village: Koblerville
Response Status: June 1992, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed an Inventory Preliminary Assessment Report (INPR); In 1995, DEQ conducted a small scale investigation collecting sample of the blue fuel product; In 2007 and 2009, DEQ and EPA installed 8 monitoring wells for monitoring the plume and development of a site conceptual model for the site; In June 2011 a sampling event had been conducted and data results are pending; and the latest sampling and monitoring well installation event was in October 8-26, 2012, data results are pending and one monitoring well was installed.
Land Use Restrictions: Village Residential
Institutional Control(s): None
Responsible Party: Undetermined
Enforcement Authority: Division of Environmental Quality; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency