[CPEO-MEF] CPEO Brownfields was "WAR"

[dickboyd@aol.com]

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Someone at alternativefuelvehicles said:

I have lived in the area most of my life. [Marysville, CA?] nice
airforce base. not once has a bomb been dropped so no unexploded
ordancence other then where its supposed to be.

Thanks for the comment and observations. Go back a little in history.
Beale  AFB was formed from part of the former Army Camp Beale. Camp
Beale was formed in 1942 when the Army, exercising eminent domain,
bought up most of the land
in Yuba County south of the Yuba River as well as some of the land in
Nevada County. The area was used for tank training as well as housing
prisoners of  war. After WW II, most of the land was sold back to the
public by General  Services Administration. A large segment, Spenceville
Wildlife Area, was  deeded to California for recreation and wild life.

Camp Beale was used as a bombing and artillery range. I hear there was
a  grass fire that set off something like 750,000 pounds of ordnance in
1947  (?). In those types of cookoffs, not all the ordnance explodes.
People are still finding artillery shells on the land. The area does not
freeze in the winter, so what is in the ground stays there. It doesn't
work its way to the
surface from heave and thaw. Cows grazing the area don't dig up the
ground as the wild pigs do. The bombing range was used by all branches
of the services.

The Army Corps of Engineers has an ongoing Restoration Advisory Board
for unexploded ordnance at the former Camp Beale. They have maps of the
artillery ranges and bombing sites. You can still see small arms and
grenade training areas from the public access roads to the west of Beale
AFB.

I don't know what the perchlorate status is at Beale. But I will say
that before about 1998, perchlorate was difficult to detect. Advances in
measuring techniques now make it easier to identify the presence of
things that had been ignored. Sort of like if you can't measure it, it
doesn't exist. The other chemicals, TCE, PCE might not show up in ground
water until some time
after their use.

The City of Marysville had a coal gasification plant (coking plant) at
one time. PG&E still monitors ground water at several sites in
California that  were sites of coking plants.

I'm not all that impressed by the measuring of potable ground water for
trace minerals (lead, mercury, chromium, antimony and the like) in
California.

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