THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 9, 1996 TAG: 9607090237
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUCK LENGTH: 57 lines
It's been more than 30 years since the last bomb fell just north of this Outer Banks village, but on Thursday the Army Corps of Engineers will look into an ``eminent public hazard'' that may still exist from unexploded ordnance in the area.
For all of World War II and 20 years beyond the Navy used 175.63 acres of the sandy sound-to-sea land above Duck as a bombing range that made for cautiously controlled civilian driving along the two-rut road to Corolla.
The engineers have owned the site since 1973 when the Navy moved to a more remote bombing range farther south in Dare County.
Since the '70s the more peaceful engineers have been operating an elaborate research pier that juts into the ocean in a notably good surfing area above Duck. Over the years the thunder of bombs seemed farther and farther away.
Then, recently, the results of previous studies of unexploded ordnance hazards dating back to the days of dropping bombs caught up with the engineers.
This week, they announced that an open hearing will be held from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday in the Duck Fire House on North Carolina Route 12 ``to determine the risk associated with the ordnance and explosives that may exist
At the same time, the engineers will make public a draft-engineering evaluation that was completed earlier this year to consolidate several previous studies that resulted in voluminous reports but no final plan to remove the danger.
``We've known for years that there was a lot of buried ammunition around here,'' said a spokesperson at the U.S. Corps of Engineers Research Pier. The long dock, loaded with wave-measuring instruments, is at present the only visible military presence.
Two different Corps of Engineers organizations are involved in the efforts to rid the land of any dangerous World War II relics just below the surface, said Marty van Duyne, public affairs officer for the engineers area headquarters in Wilmington.
One group is the Support Center of Expertise for ordnance and explosive engineering in Huntsville, Ala. The other is the district headquarters in Wilmington.
On Friday, the day after the public hearing in the Duck Fire House, the engineers will post a copy of the Draft Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis study of the buried bomb threat. The engineers' document will be posted in the Kill Devil Hills Branch of the Dare County Library.
The engineering evaluation outlines the methods used to find the buried ordnance and various proposals to dispose of it.
The actual evaluation was prepared for the engineers by Parsons Engineering Science Inc., of Fairfax, Va.
Parsons experts made ``subsurface sweeps'' to locate potentially dangerous bombs and other ordnance in the former bombing range earlier this year.
Based on the Parsons findings, various alternative plans were developed to remove the explosives and will be discussed at the public hearing this week.
KEYWORDS: EXPLOSIVES WORLD WAR II by CNB