THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503260222
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 186 lines
An environmental mystery involving macabre hints of mustard gas and explosive sludge is afoot in the shifting soils near Tidewater Community College in Suffolk.
Clues are scarce: Misshapen mounds and odd depressions in the earth. Old maps. Vague memos from Washington. Handwritten lists of munitions that arrived - but may not have left - the former Nansemond Ordnance Depot a half-century ago.
The solution carries costly implications, both for the image and development potential of what investors consider prime real estate in the budding Interstate 664 corridor between Suffolk and Portsmouth.
Federal experts, the detectives in this high-stakes hunt, will spend the next year and millions of dollars literally digging for answers.
Their search is spurred by a 1993 report that ranked the site among an infamous 1 percent of abandoned depots nationwide with the highest potential for safety and environmental problems.
In rating the Nansemond depot, Army experts placed it in the ``catastrophic'' category, which requires the highest priority for continued study, according to a copy of the report released by the Army Corps of Engineers in Norfolk.
But, as the report cautions, questions still outweigh answers. And officials stress that no one has been injured on the property in the 35 years since the depot was sold to the Beazley Foundation Inc., a Portsmouth philanthropic group that later deeded much of the land to the state of Virginia as a gift.
Yet some important questions remain:
What precisely did the military dump into pits on the banks of the James and Nansemond rivers during World War I and World War II?
Are remnants of enemy chemical weapons and nerve agents among the buried?
Did the Army and Navy, when cleaning old shells, inadvertently create ``explosive sludge'' that may have contaminated riverbeds and groundwater?
And what, if any, threat does this hold for development projects in and around the old depot, a former 975-acre compound that became a college campus in the 1960s.
At various times, the depot was used as a warehouse for U.S. munitions, a storage facility for captured munitions and a base for cleaning and recycling shells and other ammunition. Military personnel would salvage what they could of certain munitions and dispose of the rest, records indicate.
Based on a lengthy historical study of the former facility, which documented for the first time how tens of thousands of tons of conventional and chemical weapons passed through its gates, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced plans last month to investigate the site formally.
The research - essentially a sweeping probe for old explosives, chemical contamination and environmental risk - will determine whether parts of the old depot should be designated as a federal ``Superfund'' site.
Superfund is the term the government gives to the most dangerous waste dumps in the country. They receive special attention, funding and security to ensure their cleanup.
A Superfund manager will oversee the Nansemond investigation, and field work is expected to begin this fall. EPA and state officials, however, already are meeting with local property owners and the Army Corps of Engineers to plan their strategy.
``This site was remote, and it was remote for a reason,'' said Robert Thomson, the Superfund manager. ``In many areas out there, we have no idea what went on or what we'll find.''
Developers are crossing their fingers that investigators find nothing serious.
Two commercial parks are planned on the outskirts of the former depot, and the college is marketing some 200 waterfront acres east of campus but within the boundary of the old compound.
Likewise, General Electric Co. is shopping its 100 acres of wooded land inside former depot grounds.
Dominion Lands, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources Inc., the parent company of Virginia Power, is preparing to break ground on its proposed Bridgeway Commerce Park, a sliver of which lies within a section of the depot that the EPA is eyeing as a possible waste-burning area.
Don Priest, vice president of Dominion Lands, said his company knew the history of the site when it acquired the property about six years ago. He said he was ``surprised'' by EPA's decision to dig deeper for answers.
``What we're doing is hiring our own environmental consultant . . . to do some of our own testing,'' Priest said, noting that crews still are expected to begin grading earth next month in preparation for road construction. ``I'm sure we'll have protections, but we're not anticipating any of this holding us up.''
The developers of Harbourview, a 2,000-acre planned community about a mile from the old depot, also are confident that their venture, Lakeview Industrial Park, will not be affected.
``We had an environmental assessment done in 1989 . . . and we got a clean bill of health,'' said Bob Williams, executive vice president of the Jorman Group, a managing partner of Harbourview. ``They'll probably find some stuff up there, but that's so far from us. We're not really concerned.''
Using historical photos and maps, EPA has identified ``dozens'' of suspected waste sites across the tract, Thomson said, including three burning grounds where old ordnance appears to have been incinerated.
The danger there, Thomson explained, is that ammunition was not completely burned and may still be active.
To make these and other determinations, EPA will take samples from suspect areas throughout the tract, testing for soil contamination and tainted groundwater supplies.
Results will be tabulated and, if serious enough, officials can recommend the site for Superfund status.
Another questionable disposal technique, in which workers steamed black powder from used shells, may have created what Thomson called ``explosive sludge.''
This watery waste - a mix of solvents, metals and powder - was run through rinsing areas on the waterfront during the war years and may have tainted the rivers or still be in the ground, he said.
One specific location of concern is a round disposal pit on the James River, just west of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.
It was here that a team of Army officials in December 1993 found six 170mm German artillery shells and five containers of suspected mustard gas and chemical agents, according to a report of the incident.
The munitions were protruding from a hilly portion of the beach, just a few feet from the James. EPA officials worry that these rusting relics are warning signs that erosion is peeling away the sandy cover of this large disposal pit, exposing its contents to the environment.
This finding, and the proximity of the site to the college and other land with development potential, led the Army team to give the tract a ``catastrophic'' rating. It is the most serious ranking among five offered on an Army risk-assessment report card.
The site received 43 points in a category called ``hazard severity.'' A tract gets a ``catastrophic'' rating when it collects more than 21 points, according to Army officials.
Nansemond broke the barrier because of the apparent presence of toxic chemical agents (25 points), secondary explosives (8 points) and medium/large-caliber ammunition (10 points), the report says.
While the potential for problems is serious, it also is possible that none of the old weapons pose a danger.
For example, the German shells found on the beach were removed by explosives experts from Fort Bragg, N.C., who later determined them to be inert, according to the report.
In addition, three of the five chemical containers showed no presence of toxics. Positive tests in two other barrels were dismissed because testing equipment was deemed too old to be reliable, the report says.
Nonetheless, the find worried college administrators, and not just for the safety of student beachcombers. According to the report, ``(administrators) had great reservations about the negative publicity that the discovery of munitions on school property would bring.''
``Anything that could be done to lessen the impact to the school would be greatly appreciated by school administrators,'' the report continues.
The incident did not appear in any local media, though the public affairs office of the Corps of Engineers in Norfolk was briefed on the incident and told to answer question if reporters called. None did, said Bill Brown, public affairs officer.
It was a sensitive time for the college. School officials had been under pressure from environmental activists to do more to safeguard drinking water supplies on campus.
That pressure stemmed from a 1987 incident in which a 13-year-old boy found the explosive TNT in dirt near a school soccer field. After the boy went home and lit the dirt on fire, Army officials launched a cleanup and groundwater monitoring that continues today.
Given such sensitivity, federal officials now stress that most of the suspected waste sites are away from campus, in wooded areas and along eroding beaches.
Based on the 1993 report, the Corps of Engineers also has decided to study the site in greater detail, said Brown. An assessment should be completed in the next two months, he said.
``We'll be working with EPA,'' he said. ``This assessment will be for the entire 975 acres.''
Meanwhile, the college can do little but wait. Wells continue to pass health tests. Recent construction of a parking lot was halted briefly when explosive fuses were found, but those were removed by ordnance experts.
``We're concerned that this could potentially be a threat to the campus,'' said Al Cecchini, facilities manager of the TCC-Portsmouth Campus. ``But we're not sitting here waiting for the site to blow up. We're pretty comfortable, and we're going to do what these EPA people ask us to do.'' ILLUSTRATION: Map
STAFF
Photos
ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
Some of the old artillery shells found on the site of the former
Nansemond Ordnance Depot in 1993 are shown above. At right, a set of
keys gives perspective on the size of small-arms bullets and shell
casings found in the area where TNT was uncovered on the site. The
1993 survey by U.S. Army personnel was instrumental in spurring a
federal environmental investigation of the site. While the shells
they found were deemed inert, Army officials felt others could be
buried nearby and elsewhere on the 975-acre former depot.
KEYWORDS: EXPLOSIVES WORLD WAR I WORLD WAR II by CNB