2007 CPEO Military List Archive

From: Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>
Date: 6 Jun 2007 19:29:38 -0000
Reply: cpeo-military
Subject: [CPEO-MEF] Nansemond Ordnance Depot and Langley Air Force Base (VA)
 
Contaminated campus
A two-decade-old cleanup at a former military depot isn't close to completion.

BY JOHN M.R. BULL AND STEPHANIE HEINATZ
Daily Press (VA)
June 6 2007

SUFFOLK -- Part 4 in a series

More than 400 grenades, mortar rounds, artillery shells and a bomb have been dug up from an office park and community college here over the past 20 years.

Two tons of leaking, crystallized TNT was found by a 13-year-old next to a soccer field.

And 27 pounds of TNT - and detonators - were found last summer a few hundred yards from classroom

This land along the James River by the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel used to be the Nansemond Ordnance Depot. It stored and shipped tens of thousands of tons of ammunition during the world wars.

Some of it was chemical weapons, and some might have been buried on the property, judging by Army reports and common disposal practices of the time.

After almost 20 years of cleanup efforts, half the 975-acre site - the undeveloped part - is posted off-limits because it has yet to be fully investigated. But signs of trespassers in those areas are clear: The graffiti on and in old ammunition warehouses is fresh.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-6681sy0jun06,0,3183473.story?coll=dp-news-local-final


See also
Almost 140 bombs handicapped golf course
Metal detectors found 17,000 anomalies on the base's Raptor course after an old French weapon was uncovered.

BY JOHN M.R. BULL
Daily Press (VA)
June 6, 2007

LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE -- Almost 140 bombs were dug from a Langley Air Force Base golf course last summer, an emergency project completed quickly and quietly and revealed only now.

The Raptor course might reopen this summer. The neighboring Eagle course might have bombs under it, as well, but the Air Force figures that they are too deep to pose a hazard. The potential problem will be monitored. That course remains open.

"I'm really pleased at the progress being made to clean up our past indiscretions," base spokesman Vic Johnston said.

The golf courses used to be part of a 280-acre practice bombing range used from 1917 to 1937. The area was turned into a landfill in the 1950s and 1960s, then covered with topsoil and converted into a pair of 18-hole golf courses.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-8679sy0jun06,0,819585.story?coll=dp-news-local-final
--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope 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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