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Sunday, August 17, 2008

Army to clean up contamination at Hampton fort

The military has so far listed 33 sites at Fort Monroe that might contain materials such as lead paint or live bullets. The post becomes nonmilitary in 2011.

HAMPTON -- The Army has listed 33 sites at Fort Monroe that would require cleanup for possible hazardous materials before the Army leaves the military base in 2011.

The sites include a former machine shop, an old landfill, offices where photos used to be developed and artillery ranges. Of the sites, 17 might have fairly common contaminants, including lead paint, pesticide or gasoline-soaked soil. The 16 munitions sites might have live bullets and explosives.

What's missing from the inventory is a plan for recovering bullets and artillery shells shot out over the water and that likely landed in the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads or even parts of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, according to Army documents.

The Army's list of contaminated sites at Fort Monroe does not have a cost estimate for the cleanup. The cost estimate likely will depend on how much contamination is found.

Negotiations between the Army and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality are still under way over the extent of offshore cleanup before the historic post is transferred to the state to be used for a nonmilitary purpose.

The Army has agreed to search for metallic anomalies that could be bombs or ordnance as far as 100 yards offshore of recreational areas at Fort Monroe, DEQ Chief Deputy Rick Weeks said.

State and Army officials are still negotiating whether the Army will search for ordnance as far as 100 yards offshore of the seawall and the two bridges that are entryways and exits to the base.

In February, Addison Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Army, sent a letter to Weeks offering details about the Department of Defense's survey of unexploded ordnance.

Davis said that the Army has been assembling records of locations, types and quantities of munitions that were "disposed of" in coastal waters.

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