THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 9, 1994 TAG: 9408090626
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SARAH HUNTLEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Timothy Bakke spent seven hours gardening this weekend, covering the bare patches in his yard outside his Torrey Pines trailer home with topsoil. He hauled. He dumped. He raked, ignoring the blisters on his hands.
While Bakke worked, his 4-year-old daughter frolicked in the yard and his wide-eyed infant son watched, stopping from time to time to taste the dirt.
It was a typical summer weekend scene, typical that is, until the military police from Fort Eustis and Newport News officers arrived Sunday evening and told Bakke to stop.
``They pulled up and went bananas,'' Bakke's wife, Traci, said Monday. ``They told us the soil might have live ammunition in it or that it might be contaminated with lead.''
The officers were responding to complaints from other residents, who said they had found live ammunition and spent casings in the topsoil.
No one is certain how many shells and bullets are in the dirt, which was delivered Saturday from Fort Eustis to common areas and yards along South Trellis Court. Some of the soil had been sold and some was given to residents for free.
One resident, Stephen Lilley, found 28 spent casings and three live bullets when he hauled soil from one of eight piles in his neighborhood.
``I wheelbarrowed and wheelbarrowed and wheelbarrowed,'' Lilley said as he stood behind the yellow police crime-scene ribbon that surrounded his property Monday. ``I noticed a few casings, but I figured the soil had come from a farm or something. Then, it started picking up. In the last few loads, I saw live shells.''
Lilley complained to Fred Atwell, the trailer park's Crime Watch chairman, who called the police. After a few phone calls, police determined that the soil came from the firing range at Fort Eustis. The Army Corps of Engineers is upgrading the firing range, and the excess dirt came from the part of the range where soldiers load their weapons.
Police said Monday the ammunition came from M-14 and M-16 rifles.
Besides the danger that the live ammunition could explode, both experts and residents are concerned that the soil may be contaminated with lead. A recent study by the Navy found that soil from the impact zone behind the targets on military firing ranges contained high levels of lead, said Kris Meek, coordinator of Norfolk's Lead Poisoning Program.
Bill Brown, a spokesman for the Norfolk division of the Army Corps of Engineers, said eight truckloads of soil - at least 80 yards - was removed from Fort Eustis on Saturday and distributed by civilian subcontractors to ``a variety of different locations.''
By Monday evening, the Army Corps of Engineers had confirmed that dirt from Fort Eustis was taken to Torrey Pines and Windy Hill Mobile Home Estates in James City County.
Engineers still were investigating the possibility that the potentially dangerous soil was deposited elsewhere on the Peninsula.
Brown said the contractor, Reliable Builders Inc. of Norfolk, and the subcontractors, C. L. Waltrip of Williamsburg and Environmental Hazards Specialists Inc. of Belvedere, N.C., certified that they conducted a full sweep of the dirt before it left Fort Eustis. In a sweep, an area is surveyed with a device resembling a large metal detector that can locate metal objects up to 4 feet underground, Brown explained.
``I don't know how the casings were missed,'' he said.
Brown said a lead analysis of the soil was not part of the contract. The contractor and the subcontractors declined to comment.
Torrey Pines residents said they don't care how the soil slipped through safety precautions. They just want it removed - and fast.
``I told people to stop spreading it, but we are worried about our children,'' Atwell said.
``No one will tell us whether it's contaminated or not. We want it out of here.''
Atwell and others complained that authorities have been slow both to remove the soil and offer answers to questions about lead poisoning, but Brown said the corps' response has been unusually quick.
Experts covered the dirt piles with plastic Monday night to prevent runoff, and testers are expected to arrive today. It will take three days to determine the results of lead tests.
``In these types of situations, it usually takes a lot longer for turnaround,'' Brown said. ``The Army corps wasn't notified until 8:30 Monday morning.''
In the meantime, Newport News police, who gathered the ammunition from residents, guard the piles at Torrey Pines, and parents struggle to keep their kids inside.
It isn't easy. Tabitha Bakke, 4, stuck her head out the screen door, intrigued when reporters asked if her father had kept any of the ammunition found in the soil.
She waved her hand across the entire yard as she shouted out a reply: ``Shells? Yeah, we got those.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by L. TODD SPENCER
Traci Bakke's yard is covered with the dirt from Fort Eustis.
Officials told Bakke and her husband that it might be contaminated.
Photo by L. TODD SPENCER
Residents in a Newport News trailer park found live ammunition and
spent casings in dirt delivered to their lots this weekend. Police
roped off the topsoil Sunday. One resident found 28 spent casings
and three live bullets when he hauled soil into his yard.
KEYWORDS: FORT EUSTIS AMMUNITION LEAD CONTAMINATION
NEWPORT NEWS POLICE DEPARTMENT U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
by CNB