[CPEO-MEF] Those near base fear plan to end testing of water

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[Indiana]
Those near base fear plan to end testing of water
Army says pollution at ex-test-firing range doesn't appear to be moving
from the site.
By Tammy Webber
tammy.webber@indystar.com
November 17, 2002

Big Creek flows through a former military test-firing range riddled with
unexploded shells and more than 150,000 pounds of depleted uranium -- an
area so dangerous the Army plans to fence it off forever rather than
attempt to clean it up.

But what really worries residents near the 55,000-acre Jefferson Proving
Ground in southeastern Indiana is an Army plan made public last week to
stop monitoring the creek and groundwater for depleted uranium
contamination.

"We have no assurance that stuff won't wash down through here over
time," said Robert Rosenthal, who lives along Big Creek less than two
miles from the site. "At the very least, there ought to be long-term
monitoring downstream of the site. Many of us have wells within a
stone's throw of the creek."

Jefferson Proving Ground is one of at least nine Indiana military
installations contaminated over the years by everything from explosives
and heavy metals to polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs, and
petroleum. All of them, including a portion of the proving grounds, have
undergone either full or partial environmental cleanups.

Besides the proving grounds, the most highly polluted sites are the
Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane and the Indiana Army Ammunition
Plant in Charlestown, environment officials said. But only the proving
ground -- which straddles Jefferson, Jennings and Ripley counties --
includes areas deemed too polluted and expensive to clean up.

The Army, which stopped firing depleted-uranium rounds eight years ago,
wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to terminate the Army's license
to possess the radioactive metal at that site; if that happens,
monitoring would no longer be required, said Claudia Craig, chief of the
NRC facilities decommissioning section.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/5/001556-8985-009.html

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