PETERSBURG, AK A contractor for the U.S. Air Force could be removing contaminated soil and debris from a former military communications site in Duncan Canal near Petersburg next summer or fall. The site was a manned communications station, part of a Cold War-era early warning system called White Alice used to relay radio communications from Clear Air Force base in Alaska to Colorado Springs fifty years ago. It’s on Kupreanof Island, just south of Ohmer Slough on Duncan Canal, about eight miles west of Petersburg. The Air Force already removed over 100 dumped fuel barrels from that area in 2000. Other fuel drums, demolished buildings, trash and chemical contaminants remain. A contractor working for the Air Force has documented PCBs, fuel, chemicals and heavy metals in the soil and groundwater of that area. The Air Force is proposing a cleanup plan for six different sites in that area. That will mean digging up the contaminated ground and barging it to a landfill in Oregon. That removal, along with long-term monitoring of the area is estimated to cost over seven million dollars. Joe Viechnicki spoke with Jamie Grund of Weston Solutions, the company contracted to investigate the site, about the proposed clean up plan.