00001

01 CAMP CROFT RESTORATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING

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

02 PLACE: SC School for the Deaf and the Blind

03 Robertson Hall

04 DATE: Tuesday, September 10, 1996

06 TIME: 7:05 p.m. to 7:50 p.m.

07 PRESENTATIONS

08 GIVEN BY: Wayne Bogan

08 Project Manager

09 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

09 Charleston District

11 BOARD MEMBERS

11 PRESENT: David Mullinax

12 Kathy Burrell

12 Gary Hayes

13 Sherry Wheeler

13 Clary H. Smith

14 William Littlejohn, Jr.

14 George Mullinax

15 Sanford N. Smith

15 Dot Sloan

16 Harold D. Osborne

16 James B. Thompson

17 Norma Borkowski

17 Darwin J. Wilson

18 John E. Keith

19 BOARD MEMBERS

20 NOT PRESENT: Fritz Hamer

20 W. Brownlee Lowry

21 Gerard Perry

21 Robert W. Powell, Jr.

22 Gerald T. Thurmond

23 REPORTED BY: Sandy Satterwhite

00002

01 INDEX

03 Welcome by Mr. Mullinax. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

04 Status of Removal Activities by Mr. Bogan. . . . . . 3

05 New Business by Mr. Mullinax . . . . . . . . . . . .54

06 Certificate of Reporter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

00003

01 BY MR. DAVID MULLINAX:

02 I'd like to welcome everybody to the September

03 meeting of the Camp Croft Restoration Advisory Board.

04 Has everybody got a copy of the Agenda?

05 (HANDING OUT COPIES OF AGENDA)

06 BY MR. DAVID MULLINAX:

07 Anybody else?

08 (HANDING OUT COPIES OF AGENDA)

09 BY MR. DAVID MULLINAX:

10 Okay. Now that everybody has got a copy of the

11 Agenda, I'd just like to remind you that we do go by

12 the Agenda. If you have any questions or comments

13 about the items that are being discussed, you can ask

14 them at that time.

15 If you have anything that is not related to

16 anything on the Agenda, I would ask that you hold that

17 until the new business section of the meeting, and

18 then we'll address those concerns at that time.

19 At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Mr.

20 Wayne Bogan with the Army Corps of Engineers.

21 BY MR. BOGAN:

22 Well, welcome back. I hope everybody has had a

23 good summer so far. I'll try and get my information

24 to you as quickly as possible. If you have any

25 questions, we'll go over those and see if there is

00004

01 anything that I can do to help you out.

02 I've handed you two pieces of information. One,

03 your Status Sheet, and if anyone wants these items,

04 there should be some up at the door, some extras; and

05 I've also given you a copy of a map I want to give

06 you. It's essentially the same as one of those.

07 Okay. It's just something I -- so that you would be

08 able to have a bigger map to write on and to use as

09 you see fit.

10 Okay. Two changes on the Status Sheets. Number

11 one, on the earnings for this month, I just got those

12 about an hour or two ago. I thought I had them on

13 E-Mail, when I printed out this morning, they weren't,

14 so I had to wait on a phone call.

15 The earnings for this month will be $165,000.

16 Earnings for this year total will be $410,000.

17 That's what we've been billed for so far. Okay.

18 As far as payment, we've only paid out $310,000, and

19 that's the cost data up through the 4th of August.

20 So, sometime this week we should be getting the next

21 set of cost data in for the past month after that.

22 A couple of things have happened since the last

23 meeting, and I would like you to refer to page three

24 of the Status Sheet. I'm going to skip over Item No.

25 1 and go straight to Item No. 2, OOU1B.

00005

01 As you noticed in the last data sheet that I had

02 Suzy send to you in the mail, OOU1B has been

03 completed. They found a total of nine 60 millimeter

04 mortars and two 81 millimeter mortar rounds. They

05 were located and destroyed in place, and that area has

06 been cleared as of the 6th of August.

07 The crews are now working in OOU7. They started

08 there August 5th, and we've got all the crews working

09 during that time.

10 The second change there is -- I stopped by the

11 office today to get the update of how many mortar

12 rounds they've found. I've got identified 29 60

13 millimeter high explosive mortar rounds. As of today,

14 you can add 11 more mortar rounds to that, so it will

15 bring it up to 40. And I think they've run into the

16 impact areas, so they're starting to get a lot more

17 mortars.

18 And they've gone from three grenades we found in

19 that area and found two more, another hand grenade and

20 a rifle grenade.

21 In the area there's 112 out of 390 grids that

22 remain to be cleared.

23 I'm going to be providing, as soon as I can, a

24 copy of this information to you. This is essentially

25 a little chart that I'm getting from the contractor.

00006

01 Everything in white that you can see here, and I'll

02 pass this around, are the areas that have already been

03 cleared and it identifies on there what was found, if

04 anything was found, say, like two 60 millimeters or

05 one hand grenade. Okay.

06 The areas in brown or shaded are the ones that

07 have not been cleared, yet. All right. And this is

08 as of yesterday.

09 I'm also taking this information, and I've got

10 somebody working on it right now, putting it on this

11 map. What I'm going to is blow up then the area for

12 OOU7 so that you'll have a good size 8 1/2" by 11"

13 sheet that shows not only these grids, but it will

14 show the roads, like the ranger station, the hilltop

15 and that type of information so it will be easier for

16 you to visualize, instead of just seeing this, exactly

17 where each one of these grids are.

18 Most of the mortar rounds found to this point

19 have been located on the side of the hilltop.

20 BY MR. GARY HENDERSON:

21 That's in OO7?

22 BY MR. BOGAN:

23 Yes, Area 7. Okay. There were four rounds that

24 were found next to the picnic area. You saw that in

25 your last status report. There were three rounds

00007

01 that were found back toward the lake on past the horse

02 stables next to the cemetery down there.

03 The other, that's what, four, seven rounds, so

04 it went out to 40. The other 33 rounds have been

05 found on the hilltop across the road from the ranger

06 station more across from the picnic area and the swing

07 sets, and that's where they expected they were going

08 to be up on that hill

09 In Area 6, as you saw before, Headquarters is

10 getting us a letter and our Division office passed us

11 a letter also stating that we're not going to be able

12 to buy back any of the property in OOU6, which

13 includes Dr. Lowry's and some of the others.

14 All right. They indicated that it's not legally

15 possible under CERCLA, which is the law that

16 authorized certain funds, that ordnance does not fall

17 under that law, which is what we fund to use to the

18 buyback. Therefore, we have one option, which is to

19 clean up the property.

20 In that respect, we have a contractor to do the

21 site visits on August 28th, I believe it was, on Dr.

22 Lowry's property, over towards Dr. Scott's property,

23 look at those areas right quick.

24 They're going to come in starting in November to

25 do some additional sampling. This will be in addition

00008

01 to the sampling that was done on Dr. Lowry's during

02 the Engineering Evaluation and the work that was done

03 on the Time Critical Removal Action. All right. And

04 this to cover everybody that we have Right of Entries

05 for, Dr. Lowry's plus the adjoining properties.

06 After they start on the sampling in November,

07 they're going to take random samples to make sure we

08 think we know exactly where the impact area is. We

09 have a very -- we have a good idea that it's on one

10 hilltop right next to Dr. Lowry's land, but just to

11 make sure that it's not right anywhere around, we'll

12 sample those areas also.

13 They expect to be finished in March. We'll,

14 again, have to set up another Action Memorandum

15 requesting, again, approval of funds to clean up that

16 area, and it will take us a little while, again, to

17 get the funding and the contractor in place to start

18 working on that property.

19 I'm trying to work so that we can do the

20 sampling and potentially get HFA, who is doing the

21 work right now within the State Park, just to move

22 from wherever over to Dr. Lowry's and anybody else's

23 properties contaminated there.

24 We may run into a problem, but they may say that

25 we actually have an Action Memorandum signed before

00009

01 they'll let us do that. So we'll see how we can get

02 that worked out.

03 All right. Any particular questions about 1B,

04 Area 7 or 6?

05 Yes, sir.

06 BY MR. OSBORNE:

07 I've got quite a few of them. The item that was

08 found during the press day that we had down there that

09 they were concerned about, what was it when it was

10 removed? We were supposed to be notified, and I never

11 was notified.

12 BY MR. BOGAN:

13 Okay.

14 BY MR. OSBORNE:

15 Remember when all the eyebrows went up when they

16 were ---

17 BY MR. BOGAN:

18 Uh-huh (affirmative response).

19 BY MR. OSBORNE:

20 --- with the magnetometer.

21 BY MR. BOGAN:

22 I'll -- I'll double check.

23 BY MR. THOMPSON:

24 Is that there where ---

25 BY MR. BOGAN:

00010

01 Sir?

02 BY MR. THOMPSON:

03 Is that where the ten of them were found down

04 there?

05 BY MR. BOGAN:

06 No, sir.

07 BY MR. THOMPSON:

08 These grids?

09 BY MR. BOGAN:

10 That -- in reference to this sheet down here,

11 there are a couple of grids in that area that have

12 been cleared and a couple that have not. I'll have to

13 check with the contractor and find out which one was

14 and was not and see if they've actually -- actually

15 cleared that area.

16 So far the grids that they cleared in that area,

17 nothing has been found.

18 BY MR. OSBORNE:

19 All right. Their work hours is four days a

20 week, right?

21 BY MR. BOGAN:

22 Yes, sir.

23 BY MR. OSBORNE:

24 12 hours a day?

25 BY MR. BOGAN:

00011

01 No, 10 hours a day.

02 BY MR. OSBORNE:

03 10 hours a day?

04 BY MR. BOGAN:

05 Yes, sir.

06 BY MR. OSBORNE:

07 And what time do they start?

08 BY MR. BOGAN:

09 They were working from 6:00 to 4:00. They're

10 now working from 7:00 to 5:30. They're shifting

11 because of the change in daylight and the change in

12 temperature.

13 BY MR. OSBORNE:

14 Then how come it is, when I go down there to

15 check and see if they're coming back from work, that

16 the whole place is all locked up and there's only a

17 security guard there?

18 BY MR. BOGAN:

19 At what time?

20 BY MR. OSBORNE:

21 Are they leaving the site or do they come back

22 there and then leave?

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 Are you talking about you checked at the trailer?

25 BY MR. OSBORNE:

00012

01 Yeah.

02 BY MR. BOGAN:

03 And you're there during shutdown hours?

04 BY MR. OSBORNE:

05 Supposedly their shutdown hours and nobody shows

06 up, and then there's only a security guard there and

07 the gate is locked.

08 BY MR. BOGAN:

09 When I stopped there this afternoon, I stopped

10 at 4:00, which is an hour and a half prior to their

11 shutting down. The only person they had there was one

12 of the safety guys in a truck with a radio, so that's

13 way he's next to a phone in case of an emergency, and

14 they had the secretary. Everybody else was out in the

15 field, the Huntsville safety representatives and the

16 contractor and crew.

17 BY MR. OSBORNE:

18 But do they come in there before they check out?

19 BY MR. BOGAN:

20 They ---

21 BY MR. OSBORNE:

22 Or do they check out from the field?

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 They check out through the radio from the field.

25 BY MR. OSBORNE:

00013

01 All right. You were talking about Dr. Lowry's

02 property. If the cost factor says that it's going to

03 cost more to clean up than it is to buy it back, is

04 that still going to be the ---

05 BY MR. BOGAN:

06 We'll still have to clean up, because there's no

07 a legal option to buyback.

08 BY MR. OSBORNE:

09 Okay. All right. On the areas that when the

10 State went in there and was supposed to fence certain

11 areas, and they haven't been fenced all this time,

12 what are we going to do about that?

13 BY MR. BOGAN:

14 That's Area 2, OOU2, and that's scheduled for

15 cleanup. That's on the second page of your Status

16 Report. It has the status of when that's supposed to

17 start.

18 If you look at "Initiate OOU2, 15 November

19 1996," that area will be surface cleared at that

20 point.

21 BY MR. OSBORNE:

22 What's going to be done about the State not

23 fencing it all these years?

24 BY MR. BOGAN:

25 I don't know that we're going to take any action

00014

01 against them for not doing that.

02 BY MR. OSBORNE:

03 Now according to a report I got yesterday, DHEC

04 met with EPA down there on certain things on land

05 disposals and so forth, and as far as I understand,

06 there was a member of the Park Department who was

07 there. Do you know anything about it?

08 BY MR. BOGAN:

09 There was a meeting somewhere on the State Park.

10 We have two members of the local community who have

11 identified what they say are 28 potential hazardous

12 waste sites or hazardous dump sites of some type.

13 They met with one of the park rangers and a

14 member of DHEC. DHEC asked the two gentlemen to place

15 every one of those sites on the map, and then they can

16 come back and investigate every one of those sites.

17 As of sometime today, they haven't given them the map,

18 yet.

19 Okay.

20 BY MR. OSBORNE:

21 What -- what correlation do you have with the

22 DHEC, and what is DHEC doing in the State level?

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 As far as the ordnance on this project?

25 BY MR. OSBORNE:

00015

01 Uh-huh (affirmative response).

02 BY MR. BOGAN:

03 We've coordinated with DHEC to make sure that we

04 meet all the regulatory requirements, which there are

05 very little for ordnance. The major requirement is

06 that we move or transport any ammunition, then it has

07 to be manifested on one of their hazardous waste forms

08 manifest forms. Since all of the mortar rounds were

09 blown in place, we don't have to meet that

10 requirement.

11 As far as any of these potential sites and

12 dump sites that we're going to find, DHEC will come in

13 and look at those, and if there's something that is

14 potentially related to a Former Camp Croft materials,

15 then I can see if I can get any funding to clean up

16 that area and we'll clean up the ordnance.

17 BY MR. OSBORNE:

18 Well, why I mentioned it, I -- after I found out

19 about what had been going on, then I contacted Barney

20 Harmon, head of DHEC here, and at that point, today,

21 he told me that he didn't know anything about meetings

22 as of yesterday.

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 Uh-huh (affirmative response).

25 BY MR. OSBORNE:

00016

01 And that at the present time there wasn't going

02 to be any correlation with you guys. That you guys

03 were going to handle it all.

04 BY MR. BOGAN:

05 Okay. We really can't do anything until these

06 two gentlemen provide the map to us to show that

07 information, and then I'll take and look at them, and

08 I'll get with DHEC to make if there is anything that

09 they'll look at.

10 BY MR. OSBORNE:

11 Now we're talking about the lead deposits, right?

12 BY MR. BOGAN:

13 Well, I don't know what they are. I -- well,

14 actually I have. There's rumors that it was lead.

15 That it's buried ammunition. That's it's radioactive

16 materials and something else.

17 These are rumors that also one of these -- some

18 other gentleman before brought up similar potential

19 dump sites, but nobody has ever shown me where

20 anything is.

21 BY MR. OSBORNE:

22 Yeah.

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 Until they can show me on the ground where it

25 is, I really can't do much about it. And so, as soon

00017

01 as I get that information, I can check into it.

02 That is part of these programs to look at dumps.

03 They're called HTRW: Hazardous, Toxic and

04 Radiological Wastes.

05 BY MR. OSBORNE:

06 Now one of my other questions would be, as a

07 Board member, if something of these things that are

08 materializing in certain meetings, are we not denied

09 -- are we denied access to go down and be a part of it

10 or can we be?

11 BY MR. BOGAN:

12 I don't see why you couldn't be. I mean, I

13 didn't know about it until -- when I got in the office

14 Monday morning and they told me -- well, they wanted

15 to see if I wanted to come up Monday. At that point

16 it was too late, especially with me being on duty with

17 the hurricane last week.

18 If you know about it and you wanted to meet with

19 them as a representative of the community on the

20 Board, I have no problem with it.

21 BY MR. THOMPSON:

22 Did you say you found out about it this week?

23 BY MR. BOGAN:

24 Uh-huh (affirmative response). Monday morning.

25 BY MR. THOMPSON:

00018

01 Why is this thing 50 years so late coming up?

02 BY MR. OSBORNE:

03 There's a lot of rumors that's starting to

04 materialize, and ---

05 BY MR. THOMPSON:

06 That's what I'm afraid of.

07 BY MR. OSBORNE:

08 But the whole thing boils down to rumors are

09 usually 95 percent correct because there's a lot of

10 stuff that supposedly has been moved in the last two

11 to three months out of here, and I've contacted them

12 on some of the rumors.

13 And then I talked to a State representative

14 today that supposedly knows about the same rumors, and

15 this is the first time I've talked to him about it, so

16 we're trying to determine what's really going on.

17 BY MR. BOGAN:

18 If someone can provide me with information about

19 where something is, then I can look. As I mentioned

20 before in some of the earlier meetings, the majority

21 of the information where I'll find ordnance sites or

22 landfills or that type is where the local community

23 tells me where it's located.

24 A good example is I was up in Clemson a week and

25 a half ago and I found an old bombing range up there.

00019

01 We did have some rough estimation, but until I sat and

02 talked to some of the people around there, I was able

03 to pinpoint it.

04 Yes, as soon as they find it, then I can check

05 into it.

06 BY MR. OSBORNE:

07 On tanks that you made mention of earlier in the

08 cantonment area and that area, that you said, if we

09 found out about any of it to be removed, to contact

10 you. The ones I found out about hasn't been contacted

11 yet. That's what they -- are they going to be

12 contacted?

13 BY MR. BOGAN:

14 Can you give me the name of the landowner?

15 BY MR. OSBORNE:

16 Uh-huh (affirmative response).

17 BY MR. BOGAN:

18 Okay. Get that to me, and then I can try and

19 get back up here.

20 BY MR. OSBORNE:

21 And then the other big rumor that come up within

22 the last week is the tanks, either one or two that

23 were buried under Blackman Mueller {phonetic

24 spelling}. And, also, in the last month there's been

25 a lot of additional wells that have been put along

00020

01 Croft Circle, and I was just sort of wondering what

02 they were there for.

03 BY MR. BOGAN:

04 You'd have to contact -- contact the company

05 that's putting them in. It's nothing that I know of

06 that's been done. I'm not familiar with the area

07 you're referring to as Blackman Mueller.

08 BY MR. OSBORNE:

09 Well, it's right off Croft Circle about where

10 the Old Officers' Club was.

11 BY MR. THOMPSON:

12 Are these World War II tanks or are they ---

13 BY MR. OSBORNE:

14 Right, World War II tanks.

15 BY MR. THOMPSON:

16 World War II tanks.

17 BY MR. BOGAN:

18 Like armor tanks?

19 BY DR. KEITH:

20 Not -- not armor tanks.

21 BY MR. THOMPSON:

22 Yeah. I know what he's talking about, yeah,

23 but ---

24 BY MR. BOGAN:

25 The tanks, are we talking about fuel tanks or

00021

01 are we talking about ---

02 BY MR. OSBORNE:

03 Fuel tanks.

04 BY DR. KEITH:

05 Fuel tanks.

06 BY MR. BOGAN:

07 I can go take a look at the tanks. That's not a

08 problem. It would probably have to be the middle --

09 the first of October, since that's the end of our

10 fiscal year.

11 Any other questions on any of the work that

12 we're doing so far?

13 BY MR. CONSTANTINE RAMANTANIN:

14 I've got a question.

15 BY MR. BOGAN:

16 Yes, sir.

17 BY MR. CONSTANTINE RAMANTANIN:

18 I'm Constantine Ramantanin, and I own some land

19 down there.

20 BY MR. BOGAN:

21 Uh-huh (affirmative response).

22 BY MR. CONSTANTINE RAMANTANIN:

23 And if it weren't for my father, I would have no

24 idea that there was a problem down there, and I grew

25 up down there playing around down there, and I guess

00022

01 I'm lucky to live considering that I learned to shoot

02 a gun down there and got into all kinds of things.

03 Who's running the show and how do I get on the

04 mailing list and how do I figure out what the

05 situation is with my land?

06 BY MR. BOGAN:

07 Okay. If you'll give your name and phone number

08 and address to Ms. Suzy McKinney right there after

09 this, then we can get you on the mailing list.

10 Okay.

11 BY MR. CONSTANTINE RAMANTANIN:

12 And how does this affect my land?

13 BY MR. BOGAN:

14 Well, what I have to do is look at -- and I've

15 got some better maps that show potentially where your

16 house is and your property, and if you can outline for

17 me where your property is on the map, then I show you

18 what we have potentially found near your property.

19 And if you have any questions from that, ---

20 BY MR. CONSTANTINE RAMANTANIN:

21 Well, I mean, am I an isolated case, or are

22 there other people out there that own property that

23 have no idea? Because I -- I live in New York, and,

24 like I said, I'm just fortunate that I've got family

25 here.

00023

01 BY MR. BOGAN:

02 Right.

03 BY MR. CONSTANTINE RAMANTANIN:

04 That's, you know, letting me know what the deal