THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502270194
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 127 lines
A new report warns that ``tens of thousands of tons'' of conventional and chemical weapons, including German chemical munitions from World War I, may be buried near Tidewater Community College in Suffolk.
Alarmed by the findings, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched a field investigation of the property and may declare it a federal Superfund cleanup site, officials said.
``The fact that they were handling chemical warfare agents, destroying ordnance there, and possibly burying it in mounds is obviously a concern to us,'' said Robert Thomson, an EPA Superfund manager who will oversee an extensive round of tests later this year for contaminated soils, groundwater and waterways.
Thomas was among a contingent of federal, state and local officials who toured suspected dump sites last week at the 975-acre tract, a former Army munitions depot built in 1917 at the mouths of the Nansemond and James rivers.
After the tour, officials cautioned against drawing too many conclusions this soon. No students or workers have been injured at the site, and tests continue to show that groundwater sources meet health standards, the officials said. In addition, the EPA will study suspected waste sites in wooded areas west of the TCC campus grounds, far from where classes are held.
While college officials and the Army Corps of Engineers have known for years about spent shells and traces of explosives in the ground, a report recently completed by the corps from historical photographs and records suggests the potential for a much bigger problem.
Citing the report, EPA Regional Administrator Peter Kostmayer wrote in a Feb. 7 letter to U.S. Rep. Norman Sisisky that the former Nansemond Ordnance Depot and Pig Point Ordnance Depot may contain the following: 155mm chemical shells, 3-inch Mark III and Mark IV Stokes mortar shells, Navy rockets, Navy mines, demolition bombs and various ``captured enemy chemical munitions returned from overseas.''
Retrieved ordnance includes a German shell believed to have held ``some kind of nerve agent,'' said Devlin Harris, a senior analytical chemist assigned to the site for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
``We've very concerned about public health and safety issues out there,'' Harris said Friday. ``There's still people who walk in those woods. There's hunters who go there. That's a concern to us.''
A 13-year-old boy playing near a campus soccer field in 1987 first discovered buried explosives. His finding of TNT particles led to a lengthy cleanup and monitoring effort by the corps that continues today.
Despite the threat of large amounts of buried munitions elsewhere, just-completed tests indicate no chemical contamination in wells that provide drinking water to the college, said Marvin Taylor, environmental project manager for the corps.
Similar tests in 1992 found trace amounts of the explosive TNT, a suspected carcinogen, in one of the wells. But levels were not high enough to pose a health risk, Taylor said.
Nonetheless, the college has since offered bottled water and installed purifying filters in response to worries raised by students.
``Hey, I drink the water when I'm out there,'' Taylor said. ``Really, it's fine.''
One student, Margaret Lordi, was not so trusting. She has waged a one-woman campaign for more than two years, trying to get school and government officials to pay more attention to potential health and environmental risks.
Specifically, Lordi has pressed for a municipal water line that would replace wells as the source of drinking water on campus.
While she has succeeded in attracting attention from the corps, and now the EPA, Lordi has not won assurances of a new water source. Officials say there simply is no proof of contamination.
EPA's Thomson said groundwater testing is one facet the federal agency intends to ``vigorously pursue'' when it begins what it technically calls an expanded site inspection later this year.
``There certainly is the potential for drinking-water contamination there,'' Thomson said. ``We feel more wells need to be sunk in other areas to get a better picture of what's going on.''
Expanded site-inspections are the first step in determining if troubled properties are dirty enough to be added to the federal Superfund list. The list comprises waste sites the EPA deems are most in need of immediate cleanup.
Erica Dameron, acting director of the office of federal facilities at the state Department of Environmental Quality, said most site inspections lead to Superfund listings.
A TCC spokeswoman said Friday the school could only wait to see what the EPA site-inspection finds.
School officials had a recent run-in with buried munitions in building a new parking lot behind their main building.
When crews started preparing the earth for construction, they found rusted switches, screws from old artillery and other munition bits that apparently had been buried and burned, said Graham J. Ellixson Jr., a civil engineer for the corps.
Work was stopped briefly to clear the tract of debris, which was then carted off and will be inspected and disposed of by a special Army contractor, Ellixson said.
The federal report, which offers the best inventory to date of what may be buried, was generated from records and photographs pulled from Army archives, said Bill Brown, a corps spokesman in Norfolk.
Still, officials are not sure where and what is beneath the earth, citing poor and lost records and the fact that command of the depot changed hands several times since it opened in World War I.
One Portsmouth resident who grew up during World War II remembers the site as a scary but exciting place to play as a child.
``We used to go out there and crab during the war,'' recalled Peppy Owens, 62, now a volunteer with the Environmental Health Network. ``They had a number of explosions out there. There were always stories about ammunition and things. We even used to joke that if that place blew up, it'd take all of Tidewater with it.''
Later, Owens said he used to take a metal detector onto the property to find valuables. He abruptly quit, however, after a rub with live ammunition.
``I picked up a 20mm shell one time and said to myself that it was time to quit,'' Owens said, noting how he also found French and German coins, ILLUSTRATION: Map
STAFF
Graphic
YOU CAN HELP
The Environmental Protection Agency is looking for longtime
residents near the old munitions depot, or for others with
information about precisely what is buried there. Call Robert
Thomson at (215) 597-1110 to arrange an interview.
KEYWORDS: POLLUTION HAZARDOUS WASTE SUPERFUND
EPA by CNB