No Open Detonation At Camp Edwards (fwd)

[Richard Hugus <rhugus@cape.com>]

EPA: No open-air detonation Agency suggests blast chamber for 1,100
corroded mortar shells

 By DOUG FRASER and GWENN FRISS STAFF WRITERS BOSTON -
The 1,100 corroded mortar shells found on Camp Edwards since December
cannot be exploded in open air, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
said yesterday. The EPA wants the National Guard Bureau to detonate the old
munitions in a portable blast chamber, designed to absorb impact while
keeping toxic chemicals out of the air, soil and water. Dating back to
the 1960s, the shells contain RDX and TNT, chemicals that pollute
drinking water in concentrations as low as two parts per billion. Test
wells near the site of past detonations show those chemicals ranging
from three to, in one case, 190 ppb. "That's 200 times the EPA
standard," said Elizabeth Higgins, director of environmental review for
the EPA's regional office in Boston. Last month, the National Guard
announced a plan to move the shells farther into the impact area on the
base - and away from the Forestdale Elementary School in Sandwich - and
blow them up, something they said is done on bases all over the
country. The EPA said yesterday it won't be done at the Massachusetts
Military Reservation. "We know there's a technology out there that's
proven. It's up to the Guard to go and get it," Higgins said. The
technology she refers to is a portable detonation
chamber manufactured by Donovan Demolition of Illinois. The
34-year-old company said it could build the chamber and deliver it to the 
Upper Cape in about six months. It would take less
than a week to blow up the mortars, company officials said, and could be done 
for about
$1.4 million. The blast chamber would catch shrapnel from the shells and
deaden the sound, and an air pollution control unit would treat the fumes
before they were released into the air. Higgins said the fact the device has 
been used for 10 years
at a General Dynamics facility in Tennessee is proof it works. This would be 
its first
application on a military base. The EPA cannot order the Guard to use 
Donovan's device but
it can prohibit them from blowing up the shells in the open air. An EPA order 
issued last
April put in place a cease-fire on all live artillery training. EPA officials 
said they would
grant that exception only if no other solution could be found. EPA
regional administrator John DeVillars yesterday faxed a letter denying
the variance to Maj. Gen. Russell Davis, the National Guard Bureau's
vice chief, and to Maj. Gen. Raymond Vezina, top officer in the Massachusetts 
Army National
Guard. He also faxed a letter asking the Army's acting secretary,
Michael Walker, to reallocate $1.5 million from the existing budget and use 
special
contracting procedures to get a portabl detonation chamber in place in six 
months.
"Rapid action is necessary to provide a practical, immediate solution to
a problem that is of increasing concern to EPA and the nearby citizens,"
he wrote. National Guard spokesman John Reinders said last night of
the letters, "I don't this anyone here has seen it yet so we can't
comment on what it says. "One thing I would mention is we're in full
agreement with Mr. DeVillars that we really need to work together to
resolve both the environmental and public safety issues." Local activists
cheered the fact there would be no open detonation, but had doubts their
welfare was ever high on the list of priorities for the military. "The
Pentagon's vested interest is to get rid of this in the cheapest way
possible," said James Kinney, a member of the Impact Area Search Review Team, 
a
citizens panel created to give input into the cleanup. He said
unexploded ordnance is a major problem nationwide, and this ruling could
set a precedent for other cleanups on military installations.
 "This has been a long hard battle," said Paul Zanis, another
member of the impact review team. " This past year with the National Guard
has been very frustrating. They have not given us any information we
didn't force out of them. If we have to force them to do the right thing
every step of the way we will be there." Zanis grew up riding
motorcycles on the post and watching artillery practice. He is widely
considered an authority on where the military buried munitions on the
base. He located the ammunition dump where the 1,100 mortar shells were
found and is sure he could find more abandoned dumps, but said the National 
Guard won't let him. Impact review team
member Joel Feigenbaum said the National Guard is taking an "out of
sight, out of mind" attitude. "We'd like to see a full inventory of
what's out there, and while this device is on the Cape, we'd like to see
them dispose of everything that's hazardous," he said. Reinders said
the Guard will have a response to the EPA decision today. Because the
Guard is seeking a variance - or exception - to an existing cease-fire
order, Higgins said, there is no appeal open to them. She said Guard
officials had agreed in recent discussions that the portable chamber
would work but still have doubts it can be readied in six months for $1.5
million. Higgins said the EPA hopes a chamber manufactured for Camp
Edwards will eventually effect a national change in military munitions
disposal. "We are looking for a mobile detonation chamber that can be
used not only at MMR but at the literally millions of acres around the 
country where
this problem exists." John G. Rodman, Massachusetts assistant secretary of
environmental affairs, said last night the state has been planning to go
along with whatever decision the EPA reached so long as the mortar
shells were not moved more than once and monitoring was in place to
ensure no air, water or soil pollution. "I haven't seen the EPA decision
yet," Rodman said in a telephone interview from his home, "but it
certainly sounds like it falls within the parameters of what the DEP
(state Department of Environmental Protection) wanted to see."

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