(Boston Globe 7/9/98) "Navy's island firing range . . ."

[Center for Public Environmental Oversight <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Navy's island firing range will be refuge for wildlife

By Thomas Farragher, Globe Staff, 07/09/98

NOMANS LAND ISLAND - The 56-year battle of Nomans Land Island was in the
mop-up stage yesterday. The bombs and bullets left by mettle-testing
warriors are surrendering to the birds.

A practice range for Navy jets and Air Force bombers since 1942, the
island - and its 628 acres of stone walls, thick brush, freshwater
ponds, and million-dollar vistas - will soon be handed over by the
military to the US Department of Interior as a wildlife preserve
off-limits to the public.

"The birds have put up with all this for more than 50 years," said Tim
Prior of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. "Now it's theirs again. And
that's only right."

Three miles south of Martha's Vineyard, the island is something of a
World War II landmark and Cold War relic. Its undulating hills and sandy
cliffs were a pincushion for shells, dummy bombs, and strafing bullets
that are now being meticulously removed by a private contractor as the
island prepares for its transition from military property to a place
where peregrine falcons can rest undisturbed on their way south each
winter.

"As a society, it's nice to know that we have this place, even if we
can't get to it," said Bud Oliveira, the project leader with the Fish
and Wildlife Service's refuge complex in Sudbury. "I'm hoping what
you'll see here in six months is what you'll see here for the next 50
years. It's going to be a refuge - in the true sense of that word. And I
think that's the best thing we can do with a beautiful resource such as
this."

On a tour of the island yesterday, which officials called the first ever
officially sanctioned media visit here, visitors found teams of metal
detector-wielding workers crisscrossing overgrown fields, front-end
loaders transporting bombs to an inspection area, and a finned bomb with
its parachute still attached stuck into the sandy cliff overlooking the
island's south shoreline.

"As long as the powder is dry in these things, it's still good," said
George Bridgeman, health and safety officer for Foster Wheeler
Environmental Corp., the company being paid $1.6 million to clear the
island of dangerous debris.

But there have been no injuries during the cleanup, scheduled to last
another month. Then it will become an uninhabited refuge, its shores
patrolled by the Coast Guard. Its airspace will be restricted because
the island will remain a visual target for military pilots who will use
high-tech simulation gizmos, not bombs, to test their accuracy.

The 30 to 40 workers who have been toiling here since the beginning of
the year, placing flags to mark ordnance, have so far uncovered 9,759
pieces of bombs, bullets, or other military-inflicted metal, weighing
578,000 pounds. About 1,000 pieces are considered "possibly suspect,"
meaning they may carry live charges and will be blown up by special
detonation teams.

"This place is never going to be safe for people," said Oliveira.
"There's always a threat of a bomb coming to the surface. Ten pounds of
black powder have been found in some of those bombs."

Roger Alves of Freetown, who was working with a metal detector
yesterday, said there are few jobs that come with a daily boat ride and
such breathtaking scenery.

"I've been in the union for 34 years and this is the most dangerous job
I've ever had, but because of the training we get, it's one of the
safest, too," said Alves, who recently found remnants of an airplane
used for target practice. "I like the exercise, to tell you the truth.
And I can stand to lose some weight."

The Navy, which for years leased the island from the estate of Joshua
Crane, one of a succession of private owners, took the island by eminent
domain in 1952 for $67,500.

Practice bombing raids ended in 1996. And during the summers of 1993 and
1994, the Navy suspended exercises so President Clinton could enjoy his
vacation on the Vineyard without the aerial racket some residents often
complained about.

All the complaints, however, have not stopped with the bombing raids.

The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head is asking Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt to resolve its claim to the land.

"The tribe's claim to Nomans Land Island is based on its use as a
traditional summer encampment dating from prerecorded history, which
holds significant archeological interest to the tribe," wrote Beverly M.
Wright, the tribe's chairwoman, in a May 29 letter to Babbitt.

Before Nomans Land Island became part of Chilmark in 1714, the island
was used by the Wampanoags during summertime excursions, Wright said
yesterday - a tradition she hopes will be renewed.

Wright said the Wampanoags will press their case with the federal
government. "We're doing everything we were supposed to do, but we're
still being left out of the process. I'm very disappointed."

But environmentalists are ready to leave Nomans Land Island alone in
peace, a place for terns and turtles and the two ewes (believed to have
been transported to the island by Vineyarders looking for pasture) that
still graze here oblivious to the rusty rockets being plucked from the
soil.

"Island habitat is so unique that anytime you can preserve it,
especially on the East Coast where development pressure is so intense,
you've got a golden opportunity,' ' said Prior.

This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 07/09/98.
Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.

--
Jeff Green
CPEO, SFSU Urban Institute
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San Francisco,CA 94105
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