00001

01 CAMP CROFT RESTORATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING

02 ******************************************************

03 PLACE: SC School for the Deaf and the Blind

03 Civitan Center

04 DATE: Tuesday, January 16, 1996

05 TIME: 7:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

06 PRESENTATIONS

07 GIVEN BY: Suzy McKinney

07 Zapata Engineering, P.A.

08 1100 Kenilworth Avenue, Suite 104

08 Charlotte, North Carolina 28204

09 Wayne Bogan

10 Project Manager

10 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

11 Charleston District

12 George Spencer

12 CMS Environmental

13 Tampa, Florida

14 BOARD MEMBERS

14 PRESENT: Robert W. Powell, Jr.

15 George D. Mullinax

15 Kathy Burrell

16 James B. Thompson

16 Dr. John E. Keith

17 David Mullinax

17 Dr. W. Brownlee Lowry

18 William Littlejohn, Jr.

18 Clary H. Smith

19 Sherry Wheeler

19 Darwin J. Wilson

20 Norma Borkowski

20 Gary Hayes

21 Gerard Perry

21 Dot Sloan

22 Harold D. Osborne

22 Sanford N. Smith

23 BOARD MEMBERS

23 NOT PRESENT: Gerald T. Thurmond

24 Fritz Hamer

00002

01 ALSO PRESENT: Ann Ragan

01 South Carolina Department of Health

02 and Environmental Control

02 Columbia, South Carolina

03 Patti Berry

04 Project Manager

04 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

05 Huntsville Division

06 Greg Bayuga

06 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

07 Huntsville Division

08 Manuel L. Zapata, P.E., President

08 Zapata Engineering, P.A.

09 1100 Kenilworth Avenue, Suite 104

09 Charlotte, North Carolina 28204

10 REPORTED BY: Sandy Satterwhite

12 * * * * * *

13 INDEX

14 Welcome by Ms. McKinney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

15 Introduction of Board Members. . . . . . . . . . . 3

16 Objectives of the RAB by Ms. McKinney. . . . . . . 8

17 Introduction by Mr. Bogan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

18 Presentation by Ms. McKinney . . . . . . . . . . . 9

19 Questions and Answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

20 Presentation by Mr. Bogan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

21 Questions and Answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

22 Presentation by Mr. Spencer. . . . . . . . . . . . 64

23 Questions and Answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

24 Closing Remarks by Ms. McKinney. . . . . . . . . . 101

25 Certificate of Reporter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

00003

01 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

02 Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the first

03 meeting of the Camp Croft Restoration Advisory Board.

04 My name is Suzy McKinney, and I'm with Zapata

05 Engineering from Charlotte, and we have 18 Board

06 members with us this evening.

07 And I would like to first off begin the meeting

08 by introducing these members. Actually, I'm going to

09 let them introduce themselves, give a little bit of

10 information on their interest in Camp Croft, the

11 restoration activities, their occupation and how they

12 see and envision the Board working and their

13 contributions towards the remediation and removal

14 process.

15 I'm going to skip over Wayne and let him address

16 himself and introduce himself last. Dr. Powell, would

17 you like to begin?

18 BY DR. POWELL:

19 I'm Bob Powell, Converse College. I'm

20 interested in the natural history of Croft State Park

21 and its protection and proper use and have been for 30

22 years.

23 BY MR. GEORGE MULLINAX:

24 George Mullinax. I got interested in Camp

25 Croft. We had a celebration here at one time just

00004

01 finding out things about Camp Croft. I have maps,

02 pictures, so I'm interested in what is happening in

03 this area.

04 BY MS. BURRELL:

05 I'm Kathy Burrell, and on behalf of my company

06 Van, Waters & Rogers and the interest of Camp Croft.

07 BY MR. THOMPSON:

08 I'm Jim Thompson with Spartanburg Chamber of

09 Commerce. I chaired the -- having this -- Mr.

10 Mullinax was talking about in 1991, the 50th

11 anniversary of Camp Croft. I lived in Camp Croft. I

12 moved out of it right now, but I do still attend

13 church in Camp Croft at one of the original churches.

14 BY DR. KEITH:

15 I'm Jack Keith, retired orthopaedic surgeon.

16 I've looked all over the county for some good land. I

17 like the cattle business, and I bought some land down

18 in Pauline, and it turned out it was -- it's a farm

19 that was originally part of the Camp Croft property,

20 and I think it's important to know what's going on,

21 and I'm here to just to -- to contribute whatever I

22 can. Thank you.

23 BY MR. DAVID MULLINAX:

24 My name is David Mullinax. I'm employed at the

25 Croft Fire Department, and I grew up and lived here

00005

01 about all of my life in the area. Like my father,

02 George, said, we've done a lot of research and a lot

03 of interest in the Camp itself, and we just want to

04 make sure that everything is done right.

05 BY MR. LITTLEJOHN:

06 They've got William Littlejohn on this tag, but

07 anybody that knows me knows my name. My nickname is

08 Bubba, and my grandmother was born and raised on Camp

09 Croft over on Dairy Ridge Road. I've always had a

10 love of history. I majored in history and feel a lot

11 of historical significance to what's going on here

12 will affect other parts of the country, just like

13 Charleston right now as it sits, and so I have a

14 sincere interest in serving the -- basically, the

15 citizens and see ourselves as a liaison between,

16 perhaps, the military and the citizens of the

17 community.

18 BY MR. CLARY SMITH:

19 I'm Clary Smith. I run a service station, but I

20 also farm in the Camp Croft area. I was born and

21 raised in Camp Croft. The government took the

22 property away from my father and his brothers, and we

23 were able to buy it back after the Camp left, and we

24 have a very keen interest in it. And also, as

25 everybody else, we would just like to see things done

00006

01 right, whichever way it is. We have a very, very

02 keen interest in it because this is our home.

03 BY MS. WHEELER:

04 I'm Sherry Wheeler. I live in the Camp Croft

05 area. I've lived here -- it will be close to 22 years

06 now, and I work at Mountain View Nursing Home across

07 the road. And I can remember when my children were

08 growing up, many days during the summertime they would

09 come with grenades, shells, and, you know, "Look, Mom,

10 what I found," and I'm just finally glad that someone

11 is doing something about the danger out here.

12 BY MR. WILSON:

13 I'm D.J. Wilson. I'm a construction engineer

14 for the Highway Department. I live in Whitestone.

15 I've lived there nearly 23 years now. I think it's my

16 interest and those around me to know what's going on,

17 and that's why I'm here.

18 BY MS. BORKOWSKI:

19 My name is Norma Borkowski, and I've recently

20 moved to the area, and I live in Camp Croft, and I'm

21 interested in the community and what it has to offer

22 and I'd like to be of some help and do whatever I can.

23 BY MR. HAYES:

24 I'm Gary Hayes. I'm from Spartanburg. I grew

25 up all over Camp Croft, and we used to ride horses and

00007

01 camp out all over the place over there, and we have

02 land on the back side what used to be part of the

03 State -- I mean, part of the Camp area, and we're

04 really interested in, like everybody else said, we

05 want to make sure everything is done right and we want

06 things to be fair.

07 BY MR. PERRY:

08 I'm Gerard Perry. I'm the superintendent at

09 Croft State Park. I've been here for about two and a

10 half years, and we're -- the Park is also interested

11 in making sure that everything is done right and done

12 as quickly as possible.

13 BY MS. SLOAN:

14 I'm Dot Sloan, and I work for Spartanburg County

15 Schools and recently moved to this area, and I'm

16 really looking at it from an educational point of

17 view.

18 BY MR. OSBORNE:

19 I'm Harold Osborne, former Sergeant/Major,

20 United States Army, retired military; also, 25 years

21 Postal Service, retired; and I was born and raised in

22 the Spartanburg area. I live on Camp Croft, and being

23 in the military, I know what problems exists, how deep

24 they could get and I want to make sure that they don't

25 happen to hurt somebody.

00008

01 BY MR. SANFORD SMITH:

02 I'm Sanford Smith. I was born and raised in

03 Camp Croft. We moved out. Clary and I are brothers.

04 We had to move off the property in 1941. I live on

05 Highway 56 now right across from the Forestry

06 Department and the State Park and Camp Croft area.

07 I've lived there all of my life, with the exception

08 the time that I was in the military service. I have a

09 keen interest in what's going on, and I think that we

10 can shed a lot of insight into what is there and the

11 possibility of the dangers that are involved.

12 BY DR. LOWRY:

13 I'm Brownlee Lowry. I'm a pathologist. I own

14 land on what was the old Camp Croft, and I'm primarily

15 interested in the safety and well being of the people

16 of Spartanburg County.

17 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

18 Thank you. For consideration to serve on the

19 Board, each of these individuals completed a community

20 interest form that was submitted. We had a selection

21 panel that was comprised of Nancy Ogle, Dr. Gibbs

22 Patton and Mary Walter. They reviewed the forms and

23 identified and nominated individuals that they felt

24 would best serve the community's interest.

25 Those nominations then went to the District

00009

01 Engineer in Charleston to the Corps of Engineers, and

02 he has approved the members that you see here, and we

03 have one member who is absent this evening, Fritz

04 Hamer from Columbia, and we hope to see him in the

05 next meeting. Okay. Wayne.

06 BY MR. BOGAN:

07 My name is Wayne Bogan. I'm the project manager

08 from the Corps of Engineers in Charleston. My primary

09 duty is to make sure that I coordinate all the

10 activities that occur in Camp Croft to make sure that

11 we meet all the regulatory requirements and that our

12 primary concern is safety for everyone in the

13 community, our number one reason for putting together

14 this Restoration Advisory Board.

15 I also have a dual interest in that I grew up in

16 this area. I grew up in Jonesville on the other side

17 of Pacolet.

18 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

19 We want to extend our greatest appreciation to

20 all of these individuals who are committing their

21 time. They are volunteering to serve on the Board,

22 and it will be an extensive commitment of time and

23 effort, and we appreciate all of their interest.

24 There are some additional individuals this

25 evening that I would like to recognize. Ms. Ann

00010

01 Ragan. Ann. She's with the South Carolina Department

02 of Health and Environmental Control out of Columbia,

03 our federal facilities liaison.

04 Ms. Patti Berry, who is the project manager from

05 the Huntsville Division, Corps of Engineers.

06 Mr. Greg Bayuga, also from the Huntsville

07 Division.

08 Mr. George Spencer with CMS Environmental, and

09 he will be presenting the discussion on the ordnance a

10 little later this evening.

11 Mr. Manuel Zapata, who is President of Zapata

12 Engineering.

13 Now I would like to briefly describe the role of

14 the Board. The Board is comprised of 18 individuals,

15 plus the one who is absent this evening. We have 19

16 total members. There will be two chairs, community

17 co-chair, and we will vote on that at the next

18 meeting, and the Corps of Engineers, or the Army

19 co-chair, and that will be Mr. Wayne Bogan.

20 Members will serve a two year term, and we

21 anticipate meeting once a month for the first six

22 months and then quarterly thereafter. We may have

23 additional meetings as the project might warrant.

24 We envision the Board of being a conduit of flow

25 to and from the community of information on the

00011

01 ongoing removal activities.

02 Member responsibilities will include providing

03 guidance to the Corps of Engineers on the removal

04 activities, holding regularly scheduled meetings that

05 are at convenient times and locations, and all of

06 those meetings will be publicly announced and open to

07 the public.

08 The Board will review, evaluate and provide

09 comments on Corps of Engineer documents. They will

10 recommend priorities among restoration activities, and

11 they will identify standards for the unexploded

12 ordnance and explosive waste removal project that will

13 be consistent with the land uses.

14 The role of Zapata Engineering in this effort

15 will be to provide support to the Board. We will

16 provide an orientation on ordnance and explosive

17 waste, and we will do that this evening. We will

18 present the Draft By-Laws or the operating procedures

19 for the Board, and we will briefly walk through those

20 this evening and discuss them at length next month.

21 We will ensure that any questions or issues that

22 are raised by the Board are brought to closure.

23 We will provide transcription services at each

24 meeting, and then summarize those transcripts and

25 provide those to the Board members, the meeting

00012

01 attendees and anyone else who expresses interest in

02 receiving a copy of the summary.

03 The transcripts and any materials that are

04 presented during the meeting will be made available at

05 the information repository, which is the County

06 Library.

07 We will also notify the public of the scheduled

08 meetings through paid ads and any other articles that

09 are run in the paper. We will work with the co-chairs

10 in developing the meeting agendas.

11 Now let's briefly walk through the By-Laws, just

12 to get a feel for how we envision the Board operating.

13 And, as I said, we'll go through those at length next

14 month. They are in your notebooks.

15 We would like you to spend some time this month

16 going over those and note any provisions or changes

17 that you would like to see made, and then we can

18 either vote on them next month or bring those up for

19 changes at the next meeting.

20 The first two pages just provide an

21 introduction, and this would be the background on why

22 we are establishing a Restoration Advisory Board and

23 the importance of the community involvement throughout

24 this process.

25 And the By-Laws actually start on the page

00013

01 that's entitled "Draft, Camp Croft Restoration

02 Advisory Board, By-Laws."

03 Section I is the Mission Statement of the Camp

04 Croft Restoration Advisory Board. The mission of the

05 Camp Croft RAB is to provide a forum through which the

06 local communities, the U.S. Army Corps of engineers,

07 and the regulatory agencies work together in an

08 atmosphere that encourages discussion and exchange of

09 information, and educates the public on the

10 investigation and removal of ordnance and explosives

11 at the former Camp Croft.

12 Section II outlines the responsibilities of the

13 Board. The Board will provide advice on ordnance and

14 explosive waste removal issues. They will hold

15 regularly scheduled meetings, and this is as I just

16 walked through a minute ago, review, evaluate and

17 comment on documents relating to the restoration

18 activities. They will recommend removal levels that

19 are consistent with planned land use and recommend

20 priorities among sites or projects.

21 Section III, Membership of the Restoration

22 Advisory Board. This section describes the diverse

23 backgrounds that we seek to have on the Board and wish

24 to maintain throughout this process. And as you can

25 see this evening, we do have quite a mix of folks on

00014

01 the Board that represent numerous interests of the

02 community, and we're glad to see -- see everyone here

03 this evening.

04 Community members may include, but are not

05 limited to, the following: Local residents, local

06 government, business community, school districts,

07 local environmental groups/activists, civic and public

08 interest organizations, religious community, local

09 regulatory agencies, homeowners associations, the

10 economically disadvantaged, African American, Native

11 American, anyone who has interest in serving on this

12 Board has ample opportunity to be represented.

13 The only non-voting member of the Board will be

14 the Army co-chair, Wayne.

15 Section IV will be the Board Membership

16 Procedures. The community members shall have one vote

17 in the meetings. Each member is to act individually

18 on discussions. All advice and recommendations will

19 be offered by the members in their individual

20 capacities.

21 Regular on-time attendance is required.

22 Membership participation shall follow -- shall

23 follow a process similar to the Roberts Rule of

24 Orders, and I think we'll probably go through that

25 next month when we go through this in more detail.

00015

01 Public participation will be encouraged at all

02 meetings.

03 The community members are prohibited from

04 publicly representing their opinions concerning RAB

05 members as views of the Board unless the RAB member

06 has received prior approval from the Board.

07 If any Board member is unable to fully

08 participate, he should submit a written resignation --

09 he or she should submit a written resignation to the

10 co-chair.

11 We have provisions for dispute resolution in the

12 By-Laws and a definition of a quorum, and we've

13 defined a quorum and able to hold a meeting as being

14 25 percent of the Board.

15 Section V, the community co-chair shall be

16 elected by a majority vote of the Board by written

17 ballot.

18 Section VI, the Restoration Advisory Board's

19 responsibilities, and this outlines the

20 responsibilities of the Army co-chair, the community

21 co-chair, the community members and the Corps of

22 Engineers.

23 Section VII, Proposed Amendments to the By-Laws

24 may be made with a three fourths majority of a quorum,

25 and those are -- that's just a brief summary of the

00016

01 By-Laws to get you familiar with those.

02 Do any of you at this point have any questions,

03 in general, on the By-Laws?

04 Yes, sir.

05 BY DR. LOWRY:

06 Under IV(F), we can speak as individuals, but

07 not as representatives of this Board unless it's so

08 authorized. Is that my understanding?

09 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

10 Outside of the meetings. If you were to be

11 approached by the media or another individual, any

12 opinions that you would have would be your own.

13 BY DR. LOWRY:

14 Would be my own. Right. I understand that.

15 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

16 Right. Yes, sir.

17 Any other questions?

18 (NO RESPONSE)

19 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

20 And we'll plan to go through these in more

21 detail at the next meeting after you've had a chance

22 to read through those.

23 Now I would like to turn the meeting over to Mr.

24 Bogan, and he will discuss the history of the former

25 Camp Croft and the ordnance removal activities.

00017

01 BY MR. BOGAN:

02 Good evening. Again, my name is Wayne Bogan.

03 If you'll bear with me, one of the things that we're

04 going to do is we're going to turn out the lights so

05 that you can see my slide presentation. I'm afraid

06 the screen doesn't show up quite as well as it did at

07 the last meeting, so we'll need to kill the lights for

08 that.

09 First, I want to say congratulations to the

10 Board members. Thank you for being here, for your

11 time, your interest. You're going to be our primary

12 means of getting the public input into this project.

13 Your voice counts. All right. You're also going to

14 be our primary means of getting what happens at Camp

15 Croft back out into the public. You've got a dual

16 fold mission.

17 As we go through, we'll begin with history on

18 how we've gotten to the project, why we're doing what

19 we're doing now, briefly cover some of your duties,

20 and if you have any questions, please let me know.

21 We have gone through a selection process to get

22 together the Camp Croft Restoration Advisory Board.

23 Once we have the RAB now, again, to provide a means

24 for public input ino the ordnance cleanup at Camp

25 Croft.

00018

01 Your purpose is to provide advice, comments,

02 rise concerns, review and evaluate the documents that

03 we have produced on Camp Croft and provide that

04 channel to get information back into the community.

05 For the RAB members, I'll be taking my slides

06 and making a copy of these tomorrow and mail these out

07 to you so that you'll have a permanent record of

08 these.

09 The program that allows us to work on Camp Croft

10 is called the Defense Environmental Restoration

11 Program for Formerly Used Defense Sites. It's a lot

12 of words. I call it either DERP-FUDS or FUDS. It's

13 the easiest way to remember it.

14 The FUDS program is a Congressionally mandated

15 program designed to cleanup environmental hazards at

16 former military installations. There is another part

17 of the DERP called the Installation Restoration

18 Program for current military installations. We're

19 going to be dealing primarily with the FUDS program.

20 Sites are eligible for the DERP-FUDS program if

21 the Department of Defense owned the property and

22 environmental contamination remains. Environmental

23 contamination is a large area to include ordnance,

24 landfills, etcetera, as we go through.

25 We have primarily four projects that we can work

00019

01 on in DERP-FUDS. The one that we're dealing with here

02 is ordnance and explosive wastes or OEW.

03 Anytime you find mortars, artillery shells or

04 any explosives that were used in military training,

05 then we'll come in and we'll clean up that project.

06 The sites that we cannot clean up are former

07 battlefields. We cannot go back to any of the Civil

08 War battlefields and clean those up, because that was

09 a war. Anything used in training, as Camp Croft, we

10 can clean up.

11 We have HTRW, which stands for Hazardous, Toxic

12 and Radiological Wastes to include landfills, soil

13 contamination, and groundwater contamination.

14 That we refer to as CON/HTRW, or Containerized

15 Hazardous, Toxic and Radiological Wastes, which deals

16 primarily with underground storage tanks, usually

17 associated with either air fields or with heating

18 units for the buildings.

19 The last one is building demolition/debris

20 removal. If we have a building on the property that

21 was a former military installation and there's a

22 danger that someone could be killed from that

23 building, the building collapsing or some other

24 danger, we'll take down the building.

25 If there's asbestos or lead based paint in the

00020

01 building, unless the building is going to fall down,

02 we don't remove the building. But if it's going to

03 fall down and hurt someone and that's there, then

04 we'll address those issues also.

05 Quick history of Camp Croft. Some of you

06 probably know the history better than I do. The

07 former Camp Croft was purchased in 1941 for use as an

08 Army Training Facility. Quite often I refer to it as

09 Camp Croft. Camp Croft is a vague term that fits the

10 general area. I will refer to the State Park as Camp

11 Croft State Park.

12 The site was home to over 250,000 soldiers

13 during World War II for infantry training just in

14 replacement.

15 The facility was turned over to the War Assets

16 Administration in 1947 and was sold in 1950.

17 What was the original 19,000 acres, a little

18 over 7,000 go to Camp Croft State Park now, a little

19 over 11,000, right at 12,000 acres, are privately

20 owned. The private includes industries, homeowners.

21 At Camp Croft they had a series of training,

22 firing, and impact ranges. We had a gas chamber and

23 gas obstacle course that were used. However, we have

24 looked at that site, and we haven't found any

25 structures remaining from that training.

00021

01 There was a grenade court that covered 175

02 acres. It's interesting that the majority of the

03 grenades we found were not in the grenade court but