July Transcript

00001

01 CAMP CROFT RESTORATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING

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

02 PLACE: SC School for the Deaf and the Blind

03 Swearingen Conference Center

04 DATE: Tuesday, July 13, 1999

05 TIME: 7:00 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.

06 PRESENTATIONS

06 GIVEN BY: Jim Truelove, Project Manager, and

07 Ronald Nesbit, Project Manager

07 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

08 Charleston District

09 Karl Blankinship, Project Manager

09 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

10 Huntsville District

11 BOARD MEMBERS

11 PRESENT: James B. Thompson, Chair

12 Joseph L. Crissinger

12 Ed Y. Hall

13 William B. Littlejohn, Jr.

13 W. Brownlee Lowry

14 David Mullinax

14 George D. Mullinax

15 Gerard Perry

15 Robert W. Powell, Jr.

16 Clary H. Smith

16 Stonewall J. Stewart, Jr.

17 Sherry Wheeler

18 BOARD MEMBERS

18 NOT PRESENT: Gary Hayes

19 Conley McIntyre, Sr.

19 Sanford N. Smith

20 Darwin J. Wilson

21 REPORTED BY: Sandy Satterwhite Reporting

21 P.O. Box 742

22 Roebuck, South Carolina 29376

22 (864)574-1455

00002

01 INDEX

02 Introduction by Mr. Jim Truelove . . . . . . . . . . 3

03 Welcome by Mr. James Thompson. . . . . . . . . . . . 3

04 Investigations in the Wedgewood Neighborhood . . . . 5

05 New Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

06 Closing Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

07 Certificate of Reporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

00003

01 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

02 Just a little announcement for everybody. Suzy

03 has a sick child today, so that's why she is not here

04 today. Everybody was concerned about why she wasn't

05 here. She is usually here and greeting everybody when

06 they walk in the door.

07 And one other announcement. This is Ron Nesbit,

08 and he's out of our district office, also. He's

09 another project manager, and we're getting a few more

10 FUD sites going across the state. We're trying to

11 have a little more backup where I'm not the only one.

12 If you try to get in touch with somebody, we'll

13 have somebody else that's knowledgeable about what's

14 going on; and between the two of us, we'll try to be

15 able to cover the different sites around the state.

16 Okay. With that in mind, Ron actually is going

17 to take over my telephone number. We'll share numbers

18 for awhile. So we just got voice mail, so you're

19 welcome to call in if you've got something, you can

20 leave it there, and we'll try to get back in touch

21 with you.

22 Okay. The agenda is fairly short, and then

23 we'll open it up for discussion at the end of it.

24 Then I'll turn it over to Mr. Thompson.

25 BY MR. THOMPSON:

00004

01 You're going to turn it over to me? Well,

02 listen, I want to thank everybody for being here

03 tonight. We've got a pretty crew here from the

04 committee.

05 The signs that go up outside of the gate,

06 they're put up by the school; and Jim was saying

07 earlier he's not sure why or what happened there, so

08 Suzy is not responsible for putting the signs up, I

09 don't think, but she is sick and won't be here, but

10 she sent her able assistant back there who is doing a

11 real job for us.

12 Are you going to start off or is Jim?

13 BY MR. NESBIT:

14 Jim will.

15 BY MR. THOMPSON:

16 Jim is going to start off.

17 Jim, are you ready to start?

18 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

19 Yes.

20 BY MR. THOMPSON:

21 Okay. Jim is going to give us a presentation on

22 investigations of the Wedgewood Neighborhood.

23 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

24 Actually, I'm going to get Karl to do that.

25 BY MR. THOMPSON:

00005

01 Oh, okay.

02 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

03 Since Karl is here today. And I want to give

04 you a little background about where we're headed in

05 Wedgewood. I know we told you that's where we're

06 going next, and then we've got to give you an outline,

07 also, with what happens after Wedgewood, what the

08 areas are programmed and where we're going from there.

09 Karl.

10 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

11 Good evening. I think I met most of you all.

12 For the ones that I haven't met, my name is Karl

13 Blankinship. I'm a technical manager or project

14 manager from Huntsville from the Center of Expertise

15 for Ordnance. We work for Charleston and provide the

16 ordnance expertise to the Charleston District for Camp

17 Croft.

18 Since the last meeting, I realize that we

19 haven't really given you a good status update of where

20 we were, what we're doing and what we have ongoing.

21 So I tried to put together something tonight to at

22 least help you understand where we are contract wise

23 and what pieces of work we have under way and what we

24 have planned in the future.

25 From this light, I apologize. I don't have

00006

01 handouts for everyone. If you would like to get a

02 copy of the slides, we can make those available to you

03 later. If you will give one of the ladies in the back

04 your name, I will get those to you.

05 Last year, our contract with HFA, the capacity

06 on that contract expired and we had to change

07 contractors.

08 What we've done is hired UXB International.

09 They've been over here before and they've done work in

10 the park. They're a very good company, and we have

11 them under contract right now to do removal action in

12 the Wedgewood area. That's OOU3 right up in here, and

13 also in Area 11C and D.

14 Those are two of the areas up by Wedgewood.

15 These two up in the very top. The reason we went to

16 those next, they're closest to the populated area, and

17 right there adjacent to the Wedgewood Subdivision, so

18 we were fortunate enough to have enough money left

19 this year to pick those up so that we could get all

20 those areas up by Wedgewood done at one time.

21 We also extended our contract or modified the

22 contract with Zapata to provide on-the-ground support

23 during the removal action in the Wedgewood area.

24 They'll be available to set up a brochure and a

25 pamphlet for all the landowners, go to them and tell

00007

01 them exactly what we're doing. They'll go to their

02 house before we start any work in their area and

03 explain individually to them exactly what's going on

04 and when and how they'll be affected.

05 Just for a point of reference, the contracts

06 with UXB for those three areas are in the neighborhood

07 of a million dollars, just in round numbers.

08 BY MR. OSBORNE:

09 How many years?

10 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

11 Sir?

12 BY MR. OSBORNE:

13 How long? Three years, did you say?

14 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

15 No. No. The actual length of execution is

16 about six months. And this will -- this will help.

17 The reason I said about six months, hopefully, this

18 will help you understand why I couldn't put a real

19 good number on it.

20 The approach that we're using at Wedgewood is

21 very similar to what we ended up using on Dr. Lowry's

22 property. We're doing geophysical mapping.

23 (LIGHTS GO DIM)

24 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

25 Is that better? Can everyone see pretty well?

00008

01 Can you all see around this? Is it blocking you or do

02 I need to move it? (Referring to board).

03 Okay. The approach that we're using is very

04 similar to what we did at Dr. Lowry's in the later

05 phases of his -- his -- the work on his property.

06 We're using geophysical mapping, and in this

07 case the primary instrument that we'll use is the

08 EM-61. For those who haven't seen it, if you can tell

09 much from that slide, it's a little small cart on two

10 wheels. All of the magnetic sensors are built into

11 this frame. So that's where all the data is collected

12 from from the pole at the top and bottom of this frame

13 system. The data is stored in this backpack the

14 gentleman is wearing, and he has a small key pad in

15 front so he can mark locations as he crosses a grid

16 line or as he goes around a tree or something like

17 that. He has a way to record that as he is going

18 along and doing the mapping.

19 The results that we get after they go through

20 quite an analysis will look something like this, and I

21 apologize. It's very, very difficult to see this, I

22 know.

23 The small spots on here, this is a very clean

24 area, but those spots represent some type of metallic

25 object under the ground. When we do the analysis

00009

01 based on the output from the sensors, we can estimate

02 what the size of that object is, the mass and the

03 depth.

04 So we'll take the geophysics. We'll try to

05 match the items we're looking for. In the case of

06 Wedgewood, the marks that were made, we'll try to

07 match the signatures from the magnetics to items that

08 look like that on paper after we've done the analysis,

09 and then it will give us a better chance to go and dig

10 those specific things that we really think are

11 ordnance.

12 And, please, if you have any questions while I

13 go through here, stop me or holler; or if I say

14 something that doesn't make sense, it's easier to

15 explain it now than at the end.

16 After we finish the geophysical mapping, which

17 will take about a month in the Wedgewood area, we'll

18 stop and everyone will leave the site. There won't be

19 anyone left out here.

20 We'll take that data, do the analysis. The

21 contractor will analyze it. As they're doing their

22 analysis, we'll also take it into our office and do a

23 parallel analysis of the same data.

24 We -- there are several different pieces of

25 software that you can use to analyze this data, and

00010

01 we'll use a couple different ones, overlay the

02 results, and everything that the contractor thinks we

03 should dig, we'll dig those, plus everything we think

04 we should dig in addition to that, we'll dig those as

05 well to make sure that his analysis of the data is

06 correct. And we'll also go back and do what --

07 something similar to the quality assurance that we did

08 before so that we'll go into that area and check it

09 with another instrument just to make sure that we

10 haven't missed anything.

11 After the -- after the analysis, we'll come back

12 and do the actual intrusive work, go and dig the

13 anomalies. We expect that to last, just as a guess

14 right now, eight to ten weeks. We don't know how many

15 anomalies we'll have to dig, but our best estimate,

16 based on the information we have, puts it at about an

17 eight to ten week effort.

18 During those eight to ten weeks, a number of the

19 homeowners in the Wedgewood area will be affected.

20 The -- when we dig anomalies, the people who actually

21 live on the lot that we're digging will need to be out

22 of their home, plus possibly several of the people

23 adjacent to them. That's based on the explosive

24 safety distance for the specific item that we think

25 we're looking for.

00011

01 We've lessened the impact quite a bit to the

02 landowners by using engineering controls, and I think

03 you all -- and I apologize. I don't have a picture of

04 them, but I think you all saw pictures before. It's

05 the aluminum box that we essentially set over the hole

06 that we're digging and dig inside a box. That reduces

07 the distance that we have to evacuate people from

08 about 850 feet down to 200 feet. So it greatly

09 reduces the size of the area we have to keep people

10 out of for their safety.

11 And just to highlight at the bottom, the main

12 thing that costs us time and money on ordnance

13 clearance is digging things that are not ordnance:

14 Bottle caps, trash, pieces of metal, scrap or

15 whatever.

16 By using this method, we feel like we can save a

17 substantial amount of time and disruption in the

18 neighborhood, and based on the bids we get or we've

19 gotten, if you remember back, the estimate for doing

20 this clearance was about three million dollars. Now

21 we're sitting less than a million based on using this

22 -- this new method. So I think we've seen substantial

23 savings and costs, and, hopefully -- and disruption to

24 the -- to the people in the neighborhood.

25 BY MR. OSBORNE:

00012

01 Before you take that one off of there.

02 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

03 Yes, sir.

04 BY MR. OSBORNE:

05 Have you contacted and talked to all the

06 homeowners now?

07 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

08 No, sir.

09 BY MR. OSBORNE:

10 Why not?

11 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

12 We will.

13 That's -- if you will hold off, that's part of

14 the presentation. Like I said, we will meet with all

15 of them.

16 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

17 When you say ---

18 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

19 We do have a schedule for that.

20 BY MR. OSBORNE:

21 I beg your pardon?

22 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

23 When you say "contact," probably all of them

24 have been contacted to the extent of asking for right

25 of entry, because our real estate people have already

00013

01 contacted them asking for right of entry.

02 But have details of what's going to go on been

03 explained? No, because they have been contacted to

04 the extent of knowing that we're coming in and we want

05 to do this; and the reason that we're there, they

06 understand. Some of them have agreed and a few of

07 them -- some of them haven't. We then made personal

08 contact. We've got a person up here on the weekends

09 trying to catch up with them to make sure they

10 understand what's going on, but we haven't had a

11 meeting with them yet to explain the details of the

12 equipment, what kind of equipment we'll be using and

13 those level of details.

14 BY MR. OSBORNE:

15 Well, when you started out the original deal

16 that you had down at the camp down there years ago

17 showing people what you were doing, and Wedgewood was

18 one of the things that was listed at that time as

19 being dangerous, and I even took the Associated Press

20 up there and showed them the area; and I, at that

21 point, had gotten quite a few people to go ahead and

22 allow you guys to do an investigation and nothing was

23 ever done.

24 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

25 We did the investigation. The investigation is

00014

01 what resulted in having a follow-up project to clean

02 up.

03 BY MR. OSBORNE:

04 Is that the one area where you guys went in

05 there and dug?

06 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

07 We did one clean up on one area.

08 BY MR. OSBORNE:

09 I know you did.

10 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

11 We also did an investigation, a follow-up

12 investigation, the Phase II EE/CA, which is the basis

13 under which we're going back. We had the

14 authorization to go in there and spend a million

15 dollars to go clean up the property.

16 BY MR. OSBORNE:

17 Well, I was talking about, the property owner

18 that I'm talking about has said nobody has ever

19 contacted them yet.

20 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

21 I don't know which property owner it is. If you

22 will give me his number, I can see if he's one of the

23 ones that has either already signed or has been

24 contacted for the right of entry.

25 But to the best of my knowledge, I know all of

00015

01 them have been sent right of entries, and we've done

02 follow-ups with our real estate group to go in and

03 even knock on doors this last weekend trying to get

04 right of entries to go in to all those pieces of

05 property.

06 BY MR. OSBORNE:

07 Okay.

08 BY MR. THOMPSON:

09 Proceed.

10 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

11 Karl, I just have one question.

12 I know what a EM-61 is. I'm familiar with it.

13 I didn't even think about this myself until I -- we

14 were doing an experimental drill a couple of weeks

15 ago, and -- my father and myself. We located what has

16 been positively identified as 1941 Fort Seal Slack,

17 which they used in large quantities. That was a

18 combination of cement powder, calcium carbonate,

19 magnesium phosphate and a lot of iron fillings which

20 was blended to give a very hard, but, I don't know,

21 porous on top of certain burial sites.

22 Okay. An EM-61, I guess, the magnetic -- you

23 know, the magnetic machine has it, but you're talking

24 about millions and millions of small iron fillings,

25 and they used that unmercifully at Croft. Will that

00016

01 thing be able to go through that, I mean?

02 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

03 I can't answer that.

04 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

05 OKay.

06 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

07 I'd have to have one of the geophysics type

08 people look at it.

09 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

10 All right. Well, my father and I, ---

11 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

12 To be make that ---

13 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

14 --- we had a sample taken from very close to

15 where you're talking about. We sent it through

16 Spartanburg Concrete. They had it checked out in

17 Holly Hill, South Carolina in a lab, and they

18 identified it as a 1941 Fort Seal

19 something-something-something slack. That's what it's

20 called which they did use. I just -- you know, I'm

21 not trying to throw a monkey wrench in your -- if you

22 can, because I personally have metal detectors on that

23 stuff, and, I mean, it messes them all up.

24 BY MR. THOMPSON:

25 Robin, when was that checked out?

00017

01 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

02 Last week, Mr. Thompson.

03 BY MR. LITTLEJOHN:

04 Do you have a written report or anything?

05 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

06 There will be a written report coming.

07 BY MR. LITTLEJOHN:

08 You will need to furnish that to them.

09 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

10 I will. I will be glad to.

11 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

12 That will be -- that will be helpful, and I'll

13 provide it to our contractors.

14 BY MR. ZIMMERMAN:

15 And, I mean, because this is in a cantonment

16 area, and I do know that in a cantonment area they use

17 large quantities of the slack.

18 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

19 Okay.

20 This just gives an idea on the current status of

21 where we are. The draft work plans for the Wedgewood

22 area are under review in my office now. We finished

23 the internal review of the Explosive Safety

24 Submission, which has to go up to Washington for

25 approval. Those two will be available for the Board's

00018

01 review, if you care to review them, about the end of

02 next month, which is the target right now.

03 And we started the preliminary planning on how

04 to help the residents, how to handle the relocations

05 during the Removal Action, and we've started planning

06 with Zapata on the neighborhood support during those

07 relocations during the Removal Action.

08 BY MR. THOMPSON:

09 How long is that?

10 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

11 Sir?

12 BY MR. THOMPSON:

13 How long will the relocations take?

14 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

15 We don't really know until we finish some of the

16 mapping, but, essentially, it's only during the day.

17 What we're looking at is trying to work a five day

18 week, eight hours a day, and not ask the people to be

19 -- to leave their home before about 9:00 in the

20 morning, so that they have time to do their --

21 hopefully, their normal thing and still allow the

22 contractor in. And then by usually 3:30 or 4:00 in

23 the afternoon, they should be wrapping up and moving

24 out of there.

25 So we don't have all the complete details on

00019

01 exactly the times, but that's a pretty good estimate,

02 about 9:00 to 4:00 or something like that, but there

03 will be nothing overnight. As long as they're not

04 there digging anything, there's no reason that the

05 people can't go back to their home, and no reason, you

06 know, for them not to do whatever they normally do.

07 BY MR. THOMPSON:

08 And the ground will be left as it were, right?

09 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

10 Yes, sir. Yes, they will.

11 I've kind of touched on this several times

12 already, but to give you an idea of a very tentative

13 schedule right now but an idea of where we're headed,

14 I hope to meet with the manager of Cotton Creek Golf

15 Course tomorrow, if possible, while we're here.

16 The golf course, as you know, surrounds the

17 subdivision, and it will be impacted during the

18 removals. Part of the exclusion zone will extend out

19 into the golf course area, and so we'll need to work

20 with them to figure out how to keep the golf course

21 going and have people play around, essentially, where

22 we are and schedule that with them. So tomorrow,

23 hopefully, is a good time to sit down with them and

24 try to start the planning process on how to do that.

25 The next -- the next step in our process here is

00020

01 to mail an information package to the Wedgewood

02 residents.

03 Zapata is working on that now. Essentially it

04 will be a discussion of what we're doing, as much

05 information as we can give them about what's going to

06 go on, when it will happen to the best of our ability

07 and invite them to sit down with us individually and

08 discuss, you know, exactly in detail what we'll be

09 doing, when we'll be on their property, how long, what

10 -- what we'll provide for them, what location we'll

11 give them to go to or what we can make available to

12 make sure they are as comfortable as they can be.

13 If they are out of their homes, we will provide

14 a place for them. We don't have the details, but,

15 essentially, a motel room during the day for the time

16 they're out; and I think there's probably some

17 allowance for mileage and meals, as well. That's one

18 of the details that's still in the works, but before

19 we start anything, we tell them very clearly exactly

20 what's available to them.

21 The Explosive Safety Submission and the work

22 plan both should -- should be complete by the end of

23 July or first of August. Like I said, they'll be

24 available, if you'd like to look at them. They're

25 going to have them on record.

00021

01 We hope to meet with the property owners the

02 first week of August or at least start meeting with

03 them, if we can. We're really looking for their input

04 on how we can best provide them the service we need to

05 provide them, whether it's one-on-one or meeting in a

06 group or being available at some location. We will

07 talk to all of them before we start.

08 We'll hopefully start the geophysical mapping in

09 late August. It will be done within four weeks at the

10 most, so it's not a major effort, and then the plans

11 start for the intrusive work when we actually look to

12 start digging the anomalies is in October.

13 Hopefully, we will ---

14 BY MR. THOMPSON:

15 There's a question.

16 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

17 Yes, ma'am.

18 BY MS. STEWART:

19 Sir, I'm Beulah Stewart. Beulah Stewart.

20 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

21 Yes, ma'am.

22 BY MS. STEWART:

23 Homeowners in the Wedgewood area now back to the

24 mail Wedgewood information packet.

25 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

00022

01 Yes, ma'am.

02 BY MS. STEWART:

03 If the homeowners own a computer, can you get

04 into -- will they be able to get into that computer

05 and see this information, what you are organizing,

06 what you have organized so far and changing over from

07 one contract to the other? Is this information

08 available if the homeowner has a computer?

09 BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

10 There -- there is some information on Camp

11 Croft. There is not a specific area that discusses

12 the Wedgewood area at this time.

13 We haven't -- haven't really -- really looked at

14 doing that, but we could. I mean, we have a couple of

15 web pages that we could add this type information to,

16 if that's something that -- that the Board and the

17 public feels would help.

18 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

19 I guess if you -- if the people think that's

20 useful, we could put it out on the web. We have a

21 couple of pages that have background information

22 already, and if we wanted to add a specific area of

23 Wedgewood, it wouldn't be a particular problem.

24 BY MS. STEWART:

25 Thanks.

00023

01 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

02 Would you -- I guess, we're looking for input?

03 Would you think that would be useful?

04 BY MS. STEWART:

05 I think it would be very useful.

06 BY MR. TRUELOVE:

07 Okay. We'll take that and figure out the best