THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 18, 1996 TAG: 9610180536
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 74 lines
The Army Corps of Engineers next week will begin a long-awaited $600,000 investigation of possible buried munitions and environmental risks at the former Nansemond Ordnance Depot, which now houses a college campus.
At the scenic junction of the James and Nansemond rivers, where many new homes and businesses are planned along the Suffolk-Portsmouth border, the 975-acre depot once processed chemical and conventional weapons before eventually becoming a campus of Tidewater Community College.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year recommended the land be considered for the National Priorities List, a roster of the worst toxic waste sites in the country. But Gov. George F. Allen blocked the move, saying not enough evidence exists to list the property.
As part of its inquiry to determine what exactly remains in the ground from World Wars I and II, when the depot was busiest, the corps - which has primary responsibility for the situation - will dig up 32 suspected waste areas throughout the forested property. That should take about two months, explained Kirk Stevens, project manager.
The corps then will recommend what, if any, cleanup measures are needed to protect human safety and the environment, Stevens said.
He and other officials explained their plans Thursday to a handful of students, area residents and environmentalists who gathered at a campus classroom. No TCC representative attended the meeting, although one was asked, Stevens said.
One TCC student, Keith Custer, said the school gave no notice to students who are concerned about possible contamination of underground drinking-water wells.
``I don't drink the water out here,'' said Custer, as he scoured through background reports and other documents for an environmental class he takes at TCC. ``I buy bottled water. Who knows what's in the ground?''
TCC hopes to end such fears by piping treated, public water to the school. Construction of a water line was stopped recently after a local activist alerted state officials that TCC had not conducted an ordnance sweep or obtained an environmental permit.
The water line was to skirt an area on campus where the corps removed a concrete slab holding old TNT. Traces of the explosive were first discovered in 1987 by a youngster playing near a campus soccer field.
Since then, about 19 live pieces of ammunition have been found on the grounds of the former depot, most of them in areas away from campus, said Robert Thomson, an EPA hazardous waste specialist.
The most threatening area, according to Thomson, is a beachfront just west of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel. There, it appears the Army dumped spent shells, canisters and drums in a makeshift landfill. Erosion from the wave action on the James River is slowly peeling back the landfill's sandy cover.
The corps already has erected a fence around the beach, but may have to excavate the old landfill or cap it in some way, said David Muellerleile, another corps official overseeing the investigation.
``Something obviously has to be done in there,'' Muellerleile said.
Investigators hired to search for buried munitions also will sample west of the campus, on land owned by General Electric and Dominion Lands, a real estate subsidiary of Virginia Power, he said.
Officials believe the military used these wooded areas in part to burn old ammunition and, in a site near the shores of the Nansemond River, to dispose of wastes and unknown weaponry.
The only dig site on campus will be east of the Beasley Building, where college workers digging a pond several years ago unearthed bits and pieces of ammunition parts, Muellerleile said.
While no one knows what will be discovered during the investigation, Muellerleile and others who have studied the site in detail said they felt minor contamination would be identified and patchwork cleanup recommended.
A report suggesting an overall site strategy is expected by May 1997, according to the corps' timetable. ILLUSTRATION: VP Map
KEYWORDS: TOXIC WASTE INVESTIGATION by CNB