[CPEO-MEF] Bunker site may hold radioactive waste

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Texas
STAR-TELEGRAM
Bunker site may hold radioactive waste
By Neil Strassman
Posted on Fri, Jun. 13, 2003

U.S. Air Force investigators are examining a weapons storage area five
miles west of the former Carswell Air Force Base to see whether
radioactive waste was buried there more than 40 years ago.

The 247-acre site, north of White Settlement Road in unincorporated
Tarrant County, was used to store nuclear weapons when bombers of the
Strategic Air Command were stationed at the base during the Cold War.
The property is still owned by the federal government.

The radioactive waste, mostly contaminated rags and protective gear, may
be buried on the property not far from grass-covered bunkers in which
the nuclear weapons were stored.

"We are taking every step possible to clean up where necessary," said
Maj. Dan Caputo, chief of the Air Force Institute for Operational Health
environmental radiation branch at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio.

"We're not going to ignore it," Caputo said, adding that over the years
the waste identified at the Tarrant County site has been removed.

According to a fact sheet issued by the institute, "there is no
immediate risk to public health and the environment as long as the
burial site is not disturbed."

Carswell, now Naval Air Station Fort Worth, is among more than 80 former
and present air bases across the country where the Air Force is looking
for possible buried radioactive waste, according to the Air Force and a
report earlier this month in The Wall Street Journal

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/6079663.htm

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