[CPEO-MEF] Fort Dix cleanup nearing end

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New Jersey
THE MESSENGER-PRESS
Fort Dix cleanup nearing end
By: Scott Morgan , Staff Writer 05/15/2003
Project to remove contaminated soil finished in one year.

FORT DIX — The yearlong military cleanup of contaminated ground at the
eastern edge of Fort Dix is almost complete.

Lt. Diane Weed, spokeswoman for the public affairs office at McGuire Air
Force Base, announced recently that the $10 million project to remove
ground contaminated by a plutonium leak 43 years ago is about to end.
Lt. Weed did not specify when the work would be completed, just that it
would be very soon.

Since late spring of last year, the U.S. Air Force has overseen the
cleanup of 15,000 cubic yards of ground where, in 1960, a fire inside a
missile shelter cracked the shell of a nuclear anti-aircraft missile and
leaked almost 12 ounces of plutonium. The missile, part of the Air
Force's BOMARC anti-Soviet bomber defense plan, was flushed with water
for several minutes, causing the plutonium to settle into 7 acres of
ground. Military officials sealed the remote site in concrete and fenced
in the area.

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