
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991                   TAG: 9104070217
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                                LENGTH: Short

FUEL-FARM POLLUTANT SOUGHT/ CHEMICAL DUMPED AT SITE BY NAVY

State officials are searching a state-owned fuel farm for Cosmoline, a jelly-like preservative buried at the site by the federal government, after a bulldozer sank in Cosmoline-laden soil.

Until the Cosmoline is removed, the state will not be able to sell the property.

Cosmoline is only one of many chemicals that may be buried on the site, some of which are thought to be highly toxic, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Problems at the fuel farm were first reported in September.

State officials have been told that the substance - a thick grease that resembles petroleum jelly - once filled a concrete pool 26 feet deep and as big as a football field. The Navy buried the material on the 460-acre site when it was owned by the federal government, but no one knows where.

Except for one site: a dike into which a bulldozer sank almost completely during a lunch break. It had to be pulled out by a winch.

The scope of the Cosmoline mess is just one discovery about the Virginia Emergency Fuel Storage Facility in York County since the state embarked on a full-scale cleanup in late November.

The state has found that much of the contamination at the site stems from wholesale dumping by the Navy, shoddy construction and a failure to use most of the facility for its intended purpose, state records show.

The petroleum-based Cosmoline must be removed if the state ever is to sell the property, according to O. Randolph Rollins, state deputy secretary of public safety.

by CNB