THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503260217
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
The convoluted history of the former Nansemond Ordnance Depot is giving federal investigators fits in determining what weapons and wastes might be buried there.
Since its opening in 1917 on the banks of the James and Nansemond rivers, the 975-acre compound has been managed by the Army; Navy; Marine Corps; U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare; the Foundation Boys Academy; the Beazley Foundation Inc. and the state Board of Community Colleges.
This switching of commands, especially within the military, has left a confusing paper trail - and sometimes no trail at all - and has kept successive owners in the dark, records and documents show.
When the Beazley Foundation, a Portsmouth philanthropic group, acquired the property in 1960, for example, the land was described innocently in its deed as ``the Marine Corps Supply Forwarding Annex,'' said foundation president Lawrence I'Anson.
``We knew it was military,'' I'Anson said, ``but not the extent of the military activity. We assumed everything was OK. Why else would they offer it for sale?''
Robert Thomson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator who will oversee an investigation of possible contamination at the former depot, said he rarely has seen a site with such a complex past.
By contrast, Thomson had little trouble tracking environmental troubles at the West Virginia Ordnance Works, an Army depot he helped clean up.
``There were warnings and notices to beware of certain areas written into the deeds,'' Thomson said. ``We don't see any of that here.''
Most former employees of the depot in its heyday during the two world wars have either died or moved away. But not Randolph Gardner, a spry 76-year-old who retains vivid memories of his 19 years at the depot.
``There was a big washout area near the river where they'd wash out old TNT from the shells,'' said Gardner, a Suffolk resident who worked at the facility from 1940 to 1959. ``We didn't like going up there. No one liked working that washout.''
Even after all these years, Gardner doesn't think the site is safe.
``They had all kinds of precautions, but I wouldn't say it was a completely safe area,'' he said. ``You can't ever tell what somebody will do in the middle of the night. They were working three shifts back then, you know, 24 hours a day. And there were things that went on that we didn't know about.''
Records indicate that some wastes were simply dumped overboard, presumably flowing down the James River and out into the ocean.
A 1945 memo stamped ``Confidential'' reminds Naval officers at the depot that ``dumping grounds for explosives, ammunition and chemicals at sea must be in water over 150 fathoms and at least 10 miles off shore.''
There are indications that the site was even used during the Civil War. At least one historian believes unexploded ammunition from the War Between the States also may pose a risk.
At Pig Point, a stump of a peninsula on the western edge of the tract, Confederate soldiers established a gunnery in 1861 to keep Union forces from excursions up the James and Nansemond rivers, said John Quarstein, administrator of the War Memorial Museum in Huntington Park.
``They had three or four guns there, and we know they fired them across the river at Union encampments,'' Quarstein said. ``Any time you come across Civil War shells, there's a chance of them being dangerous.''
KEYWORDS: EXPLOSIVES HAZARDOUS WASTE WORLD WAR I
WORLD WAR II by CNB