00001

01 CAMP CROFT RESTORATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING

01 *******************************************************

03 PLACE: SC School for the Deaf and the Blind

03 Robertson Hall

04 DATE: Tuesday, March 12, 1996

05 TIME: 7:05 p.m. to 9:20 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 BOARD MEMBERS

12 PRESENT: Robert W. Powell, Jr.

13 George Mullinax

13 Kathy Burrell

14 Gary Hayes

14 Gerald T. Thurmond

15 Sherry Wheeler

15 Clary H. Smith

16 William Littlejohn, Jr.

16 David Mullinax

17 Sanford N. Smith

17 Fritz Hamer

18 Gerard Perry

18 Dot Sloan

19 Harold D. Osborne

19 James B. Thompson

20 Norma Borkowski

20 Darwin J. Wilson

21 W. Brownlee Lowry

21 John E. Keith

22 REPORTED BY: Sandy Satterwhite Reporting

23 (864)574-1455

00002

01 INDEX

02 Welcome by Ms. McKinney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

03 Mr. Mullinax on Resolution and Responses . . . . . 4

04 Mr. Thompson on Resolution and Responses . . . . . 4

05 Dr. Keith on Resolution and Responses. . . . . . . 6

06 Presentation by Mr. Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

07 Mr. Jessie Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

08 Presentation by Mr. Bogan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

09 New Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

10 Certificate of Reporter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

00003

01 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

02 Good evening. Welcome to the Restoration

03 Advisory Board Meeting tonight. My name is Suzy

04 McKinney, and I would like to go ahead and call this

05 meeting to order.

06 Before we get started, I'd like to run through

07 this evening's agenda. The Board members have copies,

08 and there were copies available at the front.

09 First on the agenda, we will walk through the

10 resolution that was submitted the end of February and

11 see if anyone has any responses to that resolution.

12 Mr. Smith will briefly discuss the 1945 news

13 accounts that he was able to get copies of.

14 Wayne is going to present the Supplemental

15 Archive Search Report, the first of a series of

16 briefings, and then we will move on to new business,

17 review agenda items for the April meeting, and we'll

18 hopefully adjourn between 8:30 and 9:00 this evening.

19 For your information, the Board members do have

20 copies of a summary of the February meeting

21 transcripts. There's two copies of the full

22 transcript out front, if you would like to flip

23 through those.

24 We also have a copy of a trip report from the

25 Park tour. We had about 12 members attending a few

00004

01 Saturdays ago, if anyone would like to flip through

02 that.

03 As you all are aware, the resolution is

04 finalized based upon input from all of the Board

05 members and sent out on February 29th, and I would

06 like for Mr. Mullinax and Mr. Thompson, and any other

07 Board members who have happened to receive any

08 response to date on the resolution or just any other

09 correspondence regarding requests for funds, if they

10 would like to go ahead and briefly let us know what

11 they've heard.

12 Mr. Mullinax, you had ---

13 BY MR. GEORGE MULLINAX:

14 Well, the only one is just a phone call from

15 Thurmond's office that the money was available and

16 that we should be hearing something in two or three

17 weeks, so that time is about up, so I need to call

18 them or hope they call me, but he said they was right

19 on top of it, and we should be hearing something soon.

20 BY MR. THOMPSON:

21 Bob Inglis said basically the same thing. I

22 talked with him personally on Friday, and he had

23 reported that they had been working with the Assistant

24 Secretary of Defense on this.

25 BY MR. GEORGE MULLINAX:

00005

01 Right.

02 BY MR. THOMPSON:

03 That there were monies available in two places,

04 Wayne. One from the Corps of Engineers general budget

05 and another one from the FUD budget.

06 BY MR. BOGAN:

07 Okay.

08 BY MR. THOMPSON:

09 And that that money was what they were hoping

10 they would come from. I -- I told him that we needed

11 $10,400,000 right now, I believe is the figure that we

12 had to go on.

13 BY MR. BOGAN:

14 Right.

15 BY MR. THOMPSON:

16 And this is the figure that hopefully we will be

17 able to get. But then the same thing -- about two

18 weeks is what he told me.

19 BY MR. GEORGE MULLINAX:

20 David, didn't you get a letter from Hollings?

21 BY MR. DAVID MULLINAX:

22 Yeah, Dr. Keith's got it.

23 BY MR. THOMPSON:

24 Dr. Keith has got one, too.

25 BY MR. GEORGE MULLINAX:

00006

01 He has. Okay.

02 BY DR. KEITH:

03 Well, I just -- the bottom line is just that

04 Hollings said that -- that right now funds have been

05 appropriated for FY-96. Do you know what that FY-96

06 means?

07 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

08 It would be October of '95 through September of

09 '96 is how are Fiscal Years run.

10 BY DR. THOMPSON:

11 Okay. And funds have been programmed for FY-97.

12 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

13 It's been appropriated for '96.

14 BY DR. THOMPSON:

15 And then he said, "However, overall funding for

16 FY-97 will not be appropriated until action this

17 summer on FY-97 Defense Appropriation Bill."

18 So, FY-97, which is next year, apparently,

19 action will be taken this summer, but he said that

20 they've been programmed. Now what does the word

21 "program" mean? Does that mean that it's ready to go

22 or are they thinking about it or what?

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 The best way I can describe the process the way

25 to get money is -- let me start with FY-97, Fiscal

00007

01 Year '97 and how that we do that.

02 When he's talking about for FY-97, he says, "We

03 have the money programmed for FY-97." What we do is

04 we have to divide it nationwide for the FUDS program

05 for the Former Used Defense Sites. We'll go into the

06 data base and insert how much money we think we're

07 going to need for that year to do our work.

08 So when he tells you that money has been

09 programmed for Fiscal Year '97 for Camp Croft, what he

10 is telling you is that we have gone in, put money in,

11 requested money in the data base to continue work for

12 Fiscal Year '97.

13 What he means by appropriated money for FY-96 is

14 Congress comes in right around October of the Fiscal

15 Year and divvies out all the money to all the

16 different agencies.

17 So the money for this Fiscal Year, which ends

18 September 30th of '96, was given out in October.

19 That's what I was telling you that Huntsville this

20 year has a pot of money to set aside for one of those

21 projects, and we're going to tag some money to do that

22 -- do work on Camp Croft. Some of that money can be

23 shifted to Croft and taken from other projects and

24 moved around.

25 With a high interest in this project, there's a

00008

01 good chance that a lot of the money is going to be

02 shifted to Camp Croft.

03 BY MR. THOMPSON:

04 Would that be the Assistant Defense Secretary?

05 BY MR. BOGAN:

06 It comes from the -- the acronym is DASA, Deputy

07 Assistant Secretary of the Army. They're -- that's

08 the permanent office that I think Ms. Fretwell asked

09 the question at the last meeting who would be the

10 person that controls the money. From the DASA office,

11 they will be the ones who will give the money to the

12 Corps of Engineers to do this work.

13 So, yeah, we've got some money already set aside

14 to start on Camp Croft if we can get the contractor on

15 site in May. We already have the money programmed and

16 what we think it's going to take to continue on with

17 our actions for Fiscal Year '97.

18 The problem we run into ---

19 BY MR. THOMPSON:

20 In other words, you say you can start work in

21 July, then?

22 BY MR. BOGAN:

23 We're hoping to get a contractor on site May to

24 June to actually start cleanup activities.

25 BY MR. THOMPSON:

00009

01 Unless we get money earlier?

02 BY MR. BOGAN:

03 We won't be able to get it any earlier, just for

04 the safety plans that the contractor has to submit,

05 there's work plans -- those type of submittals.

06 BY DR. LOWRY:

07 60 days.

08 BY MR. BOGAN:

09 And you're looking at 60 days. The contract has

10 already been given to the contractor. They're looking

11 at coming up the 18th of ---

12 BY MR. THOMPSON:

13 That's fine, yeah.

14 BY MR. GEORGE MULLINAX:

15 That's all they can do.

16 BY MR. BOGAN:

17 Yeah. The 18th I think is Monday, and I think I

18 mentioned it to Gerry on the phone the other day, the

19 contractor is actually looking to come out then to

20 look at the site and see what he can do to prepare any

21 safety plans, the scope of work, the work plan that he

22 needs to actually work on the site.

23 BY MR. THOMPSON:

24 Well, one thing that was done, and I think was

25 really nice, and that was to have that whole county

00010

01 delegation. They got a copy of the letters, and they

02 wrote letters also to Ernest Hollings and Thurmond and

03 I know Bob Inglis got a letter from Laney Littlejohn.

04 It's in his district here.

05 BY MR. BOGAN:

06 Right.

07 BY MR. THOMPSON:

08 And Laney sent me a copy of the same letter, and

09 they referred to that.

10 BY MR. BOGAN:

11 Right.

12 BY MR. THOMPSON:

13 They were glad -- they're State people now ---

14 BY MR. BOGAN:

15 Right.

16 BY MR. THOMPSON:

17 --- involved in that.

18 BY MR. BOGAN:

19 Right. And to kind of address the Congressional

20 interest where Senator Thurmond and Hollings and those

21 that said they were requesting the money and that they

22 have been doing that.

23 Just some background, from what I understand,

24 Senator Thurmond's office, whether it's Senator

25 Thurmond himself or someone else, is calling on a

00011

01 weekly basis to our headquarters wanting to know how

02 we're doing on the project.

03 BY MR. THOMPSON:

04 I know Bob said the same thing to that.

05 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

06 The next step then, and Wayne has requested that

07 -- or has let me know that the Corps of Engineers is

08 requesting a written statement from the Board.

09 We describe in that Resolution, or you the

10 Board, actually, is to describe that the proposed

11 remedy would be clearance to depth in all areas. And

12 Wayne has asked, on behalf of the Corps, that we

13 submit in writing the justification for clearance to

14 depth for all areas as opposed to the EE/CA remedy

15 alternatives, which some of those areas are

16 recommended to just be surface clearance.

17 And Wayne and I have spoken and we feel that the

18 best use of time and energy is maybe to have a

19 subcommittee to be developed to pull that statement

20 together.

21 Wayne can you give a little bit more information

22 on what we're seeking.

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 All right. Essentially, we've provided you with

25 the EE/CA, the Engineering Evaluation and Cost

00012

01 Analysis and said these are the alternatives we want

02 to do. This is how much it's essentially going to

03 cost.

04 A resolution that went up, as to various

05 comments that you provided to Suzy in preparing the

06 resolution, you all requested that we do a clearance

07 to depth on all of the areas. That's fine. We wanted

08 your input and you gave it to us.

09 Now what I need you to do, in two of the areas

10 where we suggested or proposed a clearance for surface

11 only and you've suggested a clearance to depth, we

12 need to know some specific reasons.

13 And I -- I don't need major detail, but I need

14 you to come in and say, "We believe that because of

15 the community interest or because of the" ---

16 BY MR. THOMPSON:

17 Are you talking about the 40 acres and the whole

18 thing?

19 BY MR. BOGAN:

20 I think it's Area 2, which was off of

21 Henningston Road. We've proposed surface clearance.

22 The resolution requires a clearance to depth, a

23 request for clearance to depth.

24 It was on another area, Area 1B, which is north

25 of Twin Oaks picnic shelter. We proposed a clearance

00013

01 for surface only, and the resolution requests a

02 clearance to depth.

03 Before I come back and say, "No, we're only

04 going to do clearance for the surface only," if you

05 can give me some -- some ideas of why you want to go

06 to clearance to depth, kind of a justification of why

07 you feel that we need to go to clearance to depth,

08 then I can come back with a formal recommendation,

09 after taking your thoughts, and say, "Yeah, we agree

10 with your recommendations to go to clearance to depth,

11 and we'll change our scope of work to do that," or

12 "No, because of these reasons, we believe we still

13 only need to do a surface clearance."

14 BY MR. THOMPSON:

15 Is that the $10,400,000?

16 BY MR. BOGAN:

17 The $10,400,000 deals with clearance to depth on

18 all of them.

19 BY MR. THOMPSON:

20 Okay.

21 BY MR. BOGAN:

22 If you change back the surface clearance for

23 Area 2 and for Area 1B, I believe it drops the cost to

24 a little over $8 Million, right around $9 Million.

25 BY DR. LOWRY:

00014

01 Would you be there to guide us or will somebody

02 from the Corps be there? I've got pretty good data on

03 this because of my involvement, but will somebody from

04 the Corps meet with us to kind of -- I mean, none of

05 us are really ordnance people.

06 BY MR. BOGAN:

07 Right. I can sit down with the subcommittee at

08 anytime that you want to, if that's what you want to

09 do, and I can kind of give you some more outlines of

10 what we're looking for.

11 I can't write it for you, because that goes

12 against what I've already recommended, but I will give

13 you any help that you need and any ordnance technical

14 assistance.

15 If you need an ordnance technician to come in,

16 Greg Bayuga from Huntsville or someone else, to give

17 you more input, then we can arrange that.

18 BY DR. LOWRY:

19 So do you want volunteers?

20 BY MS. MCKINNEY:

21 Well, I think what we would like to do is ---

22 BY MR. THOMPSON:

23 I'd like to ask the committee, why wouldn't we

24 want a surface clearance?

25 BY MR. HAMER:

00015

01 Why would we?

02 BY MR. THOMPSON:

03 Uh-huh (affirmative response). Why wouldn't we

04 want to go there?

05 BY MR. HAMER:

06 Well, I think we -- I think we ought to go as

07 far down as we can go. I'm not in the military

08 service and never have been, but I've got some friends

09 who have been in ordnance in Vietnam and know about

10 ordnance in World War II, and they say that,

11 categorically, that going less than four to six feet,

12 then you're taking a big risk, and ---

13 BY MR. THOMPSON:

14 Well, this is only 24 inches, I think.

15 BY MR. HAMER:

16 That's -- I know and that's a problem I have.

17 And I've talked to other veterans here and elsewhere,

18 and if you look at this base that's been -- that was

19 here, the training facility for five years and the

20 amount of stuff that they played with here and

21 different climatic conditions, two -- two feet,

22 I don't think is safe -- is adequate, and I -- and I

23 -- and I think -- and I think I know the reason why

24 that two feet is recommended is because of cost, but

25 if we're -- we're taking a risk, I feel, not going as

00016

01 far down as -- as -- as all of the evidence shows that

02 this -- this ordnance is going.

03 BY DR. LOWRY:

04 The Department of Defense Safety Ordnance,

05 Safety Explosive Ordnance, and your own EE/CA summary

06 had recommendations in there that the Department of

07 Defense Safety Ordnance, Safety Explosive Ordnance,

08 recommends 12 inches of clearance for grazing of

09 cattle.

10 It recommends four feet for any residential --

11 10 feet for residential, but for any kind of public

12 use it's a minimum of four feet, and that's why you

13 said last time that if you went to 24 inches and there

14 was something down there still that you would go to

15 four feet.

16 BY MR. BOGAN:

17 Right.

18 BY DR. LOWRY:

19 But in areas of the Park that -- that are --

20 that are way over on the side that can be clearly

21 marked that are used for hunting only and really

22 nobody ever goes there, that's what kind of

23 recommendation that you all are hunting for rather

24 than a clearance to four feet?

25 If they cleared my land to four feet, they would

00017

01 kill every tree on it, just about.

02 BY MR. CLARY SMITH:

03 That's a question. How are you going to clear

04 it where you've got all of them trees?

05 BY DR. LOWRY:

06 Well, that's -- that's just -- well, that's the

07 problem I had, but when they cleared the part that

08 they cleared, they dug a hole every six inches, and

09 there are areas that -- that I would not feel safe

10 with for less than four feet myself, having dealt with

11 ordnance people now for two years, but in some other

12 areas that are not as utilized by humans that can be

13 clearly marked, fine, two feet would be different, but

14 then you've got other things, like erosion. You've

15 got frost heave. You've got all these other things

16 that tend to make it migrate to the top that it's in

17 your writing. I would think I'd be glad to serve on a

18 subcommittee if you all want one.

19 BY MR. BOGAN:

20 Let me address two things in there. First, the

21 difference between a surface clearance and a clearance

22 to depth.

23 Surface clearance is purely that, surface.

24 Okay. When they come in and do a surface clearance,

25 if they see something sticking out of the ground or

00018

01 they can scrape away the first inch or two of soil and

02 find something, then they'll clear that. That's what

03 recommended now for Areas 1B and Area 2.

04 The reason the rationale behind that is, one,

05 the low use. They're in areas where, the majority of

06 the area, there's not a horse trail. There's no

07 recreation going on and there's no planned activities

08 in the future.

09 Since there is no planned activities and nothing

10 being used for the sites, other than maybe somebody

11 walking over on the site now, why do you need to go

12 any deeper than maybe 6 to 12 inches in that area?

13 A clearance to depth, as recommended in Area 7,

14 the recreation area, the campground, whatever, the

15 recommendation is two feet, 24 inches, because of the

16 -- what we know we've already found on the property.

17 All right. The clearance to depth can vary

18 based on what we know, and since we've already done

19 sampling, we know that the ordnance is located within

20 22 inches of the surface. They've recommended just a

21 blanket two feet on the Area 7.

22 Okay. So if they -- the way it's set up now,

23 based on lack of use, lack of future constructions in

24 Areas 1B and Area 2, then it's just a surface only,

25 probably within six inches of the surface. We won't

00019

01 actually go down to two feet.

02 The clearance to depth in Area 7 and Area 3,

03 when they look at those areas and go down, that will

04 be down to 24 inches. If we find anything deeper than

05 that, they will go down to the four feet.

06 And, hopefully, that will clarify the difference

07 between surface and ---

08 BY MR. DUBEAU:

09 Can I ask you a question, please?

10 BY MR. BOGAN:

11 Yes, sir.

12 BY MR. DUBEAU:

13 You're talking about two feet. If you're going

14 to go down further, how are you going to find out

15 what's down there if you don't test it?

16 BY MR. BOGAN:

17 What they're expecting with the magnetometer

18 when they get a reading that they don't expect it to

19 be deeper than two feet. Okay. If I'm walking over

20 this area and I get a beep from the metal detector,

21 and I find it, they'll dig down and they don't expect

22 it to be more than two feet. However, if they haven't

23 found it at two feet, they will continue down to dig

24 for it.

25 BY MR. DUBEAU:

00020

01 Is that done every time that they test?

02 BY MR. BOGAN:

03 It's supposed to be, yes, sir.

04 BY MR. DUBEAU:

05 Oh, suppose. Yeah, that's a big thing.

06 BY MR. BOGAN:

07 I'm not -- the reason I say "supposed to" is

08 because I'm not there with the crews. I don't ever go

09 there. As a manager, I sit back and we have those

10 safety ordnance technicians.

11 BY MR. DUBEAU:

12 I understand your end of it, but there's a lot

13 of stuff a lot deeper than three feet or four.

14 BY MR. BOGAN:

15 Potentially, yes, sir.

16 BY MR. DUBEAU:

17 Yeah, you better believe it.

18 BY MR. BOGAN:

19 But the sampling indicates right now, we've only

20 found it down to two feet, and so that's the

21 recommendation.

22 If they dig down to two feet and the

23 magnetometer really doesn't read anything after that,

24 then they'll stop, but that's a call for the safety

25 technician or the safety guy that we've got on the

00021

01 site at that time.

02 BY MR. DUBEAU:

03 Thank you.

04 BY MR. BOGAN:

05 Yes, sir. Dr. Powell.

06 BY DR. POWELL:

07 I'm concerned about what it takes to get down

08 there. Do we clear the Park to do this or do we just

09 dig where the ping hits?

10 BY MR. BOGAN:

11 We'll dig where the ping hits, and I'm working

12 on getting a video that will show you the crew

13 actually walking the area.

14 BY DR. POWELL:

15 How much clearing has got to be done to do that?

16 BY MR. BOGAN:

17 The area just has to be cleared enough for the

18 person to walk through. If there's any major brush,

19 like kudzu, then we'll have to clear the kudzu out so

20 that they can walk through and have a clear area that

21 they can use the metal detectors.

22 They'll walk through and they'll sweep and

23 usually have about four or five people on line, and

24 they go up side by side through an area until they set

25 up and clear lanes one at a time.

00022

01 If they get a beep, an anomaly from the

02 magnetometer, then they stop and they'll put a flag

03 there and they'll go on. Then they'll come back, and

04 each one of those flags they can come back and

05 investigate and dig that one hole.

06 BY DR. POWELL:

07 Would this be a 100 percent search or just a

08 random sampling?

09 BY MR. BOGAN:

10 We've already done a sampling. The clearance in

11 like in Area 7 will be a 100 percent clearance of that

12 area.

13 BY DR. POWELL:

14 Okay.

15 BY MR. BOGAN:

16 Yes, sir.

17 BY MR. HAYES:

18 What's the depth of the magnetometer will pick

19 up?

20 BY MR. BOGAN:

21 They are calibrated to go to four feet for a 105

22 millimeter artillery shell, so ---

23 BY MR. HAYES:

24 So they won't go deeper than four?