[CPEO-MEF] Exploding waste sites

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

On July 23, 2001, we posted a link to the July 4, 2001 San Francisco Bay
Guardian article on contamination at the former Alameda Naval Air
Station, "Hot Property." I finally got around to reading it, and one
particular section, pasted below, highlighted a problem that is likely
to occur elsewhere.

Where ordnance is found at burial sites containing other wastes,
explosive ordnance specialists should be required to consult with
environmental regulators before taking emergency action. It's quite
possible that the destruction of uncovered ordnance could spread toxic
and radioactive substances from such sites.

Lenny








***

It was December 1998, and Navy scientists were dragging a gamma
radiation sensor over the west-end landfill. They knew from studies
dating back to 1991 that radium, PCBs, asbestos, pesticides, and a
million other things had been buried or burned in the area. And they
knew that an earlier round of radiation readings had come in at more
than twice the safe limit. But they didn't know about this: buried in
the ground were 335 live 20-millimeter shells. 

The surveyors rushed in unexploded-ordnance specialists from the Navy's
Vallejo outpost to deal with the shells, each one about three inches
long, nearly an inch in diameter, and packed with high explosive. 

The bomb squad had a simple plan to neutralize the ammo: clear everyone
out, set an incendiary charge, and blow the little missiles sky-high.
The technique is known as "open detonation" in military parlance. 

There's just one problem with this little scheme. 

At the time of the operation, the Navy hadn't completed its study of the
terrain and couldn't say precisely what kind of toxins and what levels
of gamma radiation infected the soil around the buried shells – and
setting off a sizable explosive charge would definitely launch some of
that dirt into the atmosphere, spreading the contagion. 

Despite the lack of conclusive data, the detachment charged ahead and
blew up the ammo. A color photo of the explosion, referred to
euphemistically as an "emergency removal action," shows a dark brown
tornado of dirt shooting into the air. It looks to be 20 to 30 feet
high. The picture, along with the rest of this info, can be found in a
pair of naval reports on the subject. 

The soil the Navy blasted into the sky may well have been radioactive.
Radiation maps of the territory, completed by the surveyors after the
bomb squad did its thing, show a major radium deposit in the area,
marked as a fat yellow and red blot. The hottest points on the map
clocked in at over a thousand times higher than acceptable levels. As
for the slightly less deadly stuff, post-blast dirt samples found lead
concentrations 33,000 times over the legal limit.  

For the entire article, see
http://www.sfbg.com/News/35/40/40tox.html


-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org

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