INDEX

Welcome by Mr. Clary H. Smith .......................................... 3

Status of Wedgewood Removal Actions ............................... 5

New Contract Award ........................................................... 8

Integrated Management Contract .......................................... 12

Schedule of Activities ......................................................... 16

New Business ...................................................................... 23

Certificate of Reporter ......................................................... 41

BY. MR. SMITH:

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to our meeting tonight. And I hope we will give you some information that will be beneficial for you today.

We do have one thing. We have a new transcriber with us tonight. So make sure you tell who you are before you start speaking, because she doesn't know us like our other one. She knew us. So make sure you tell your name and identify yourself before you speak.

Suzy, we will hear from you all then.

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

Okay. Thanks. Karl.

BY MR. KARL:

Just to help, my name is Karl Blankinship. I think most of you know me and have seen me before. I'm with the Corps of Engineers in Huntsville. And we have been the primary contract managers for all the work that's gone on here at Croft.

I just wanted to take a few minutes tonight. I notice there are some new faces and some new folks. And kind of go through a summary of where we've been, what we've accomplished so far at Croft, and give you an idea of where we're headed over the next year or so.

We started Huntsville and the Corps of Engineers started in the ordnance program in about 1990. Camp Croft was one of our very first sites, the major site that we actually started doing removal work on. And that was in approximately 1993. So when this job started, this program was very much in its infancy. There were no policies, no procedures, no regulations to follow.

We have sort of gone through the program and as those policies and procedures have developed, we've applied them here to actually develop a lot of things here that we've used across the United States at our other sites, so. There are between a thousand and fifteen, sixteen hundred sites across the United States similar to Croft, not as large, most of them, but that do have a potential ordnance problem. So this site has really helped us move forward with technology, helped us develop the policies and procedures that we are using all over the United States.

Of those technologies, I think most of you have seen, we started out here almost with a Radio Shack metal detector, I guess, to give you an idea of the technology we were using. And we've gone from that up to very sophisticated geophysical equipment that's used for in a lot of cases for mining, for subsurface exploration for all other types of things. And really applied that technology to ordnance. We don't do much with just a metal detector anymore. It's mostly geophysically mapping, and we interrupt the maps with sophisticated computer agrarianism to try to find the ordnance. So we've moved a long ways forward.

So far as far as accomplishment at the Camp Croft site itself, we've cleared somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hundred acres or more. And actually made that land safer for you to use. A large portion of it is within the state park. We did have the park closed for a while. We cleared large areas, made sure that the park was safe for use in those areas that are being used, and then opened it back. So that's one of the major benefits that you can see from your tax money.

One of the others is within the Wedgewood Subdivision. We cleaned almost all of the residential lots within that subdivision. We have some work left around the perimeter and a couple of lots that we just couldn't get done when we were here. But we've drastically improved the safety of that neighborhood, drastically reduced the chance that anything is left there. And I think that's a real positive that we need to keep in mind. All in all, we've really helped you, I think, feel safer about your neighborhoods, your property, your land, your parks, and really benefitted the community with your tax money that we spent. So it hadn't gone for nothing. It's been a long road and it's taken a lot of time, but there are positive benefits from the money we spent here.

class=Section5>

One of the ways that we've been able to accomplish that and one of the biggest things that stands out from Camp Croft across the United States is the Restoration Advisory Board. That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk a little while tonight and really express my appreciation for everything that all of the boards have done over the years. They've been eagerly involved in the projects. They've helped us make discussions on where to clear, when to clear, how to structure our work so that it blends with what the community expects from us. They've been an excellent contact to help us understand your concerns, help keep us focused and keep our work going where it really needs to be done to really benefit you as much as possible. They've also have helped quite a bit with the review of our documents and our decision-making process. And a great number of these people have been serving on the RAB and actually coming to the meetings and participating for over five years. And that's a real outstanding accomplishment, because when people look for a Restoration Advisory Board on a ordnance project to see what it should look like, anywhere in the United States, they look to Camp Croft to see what one should look like, how it should function, what rules it should follow, and that type thing. So I think this is really a gem that you have here, and they've done a great job.

I've touched a little bit on the pushing the state of the art. When someone across the United States looks for a method to accomplish a difficult site, to go to a place where there is trouble with magnetic's in the bedrock or magnetic rock, they come to us and say, "What did you do at Croft?" This is one of the first sites that we've found that had such a high concentration of magnetic rock, that it was difficult to find anything but rocks. We hadn't completely met the challenge of getting away from digging up rocks, but we've greatly reduced the number that we do dig. And as far as right now, a number of the larger companies who deal with geophysics in the United States, have actually come here and asked to go to some of the sites and test their prototype equipment to see if they can get it to work. So that's another benefit I think that we need to recognize and keep in mind.

In continuing with that push of the state of the art, we will be partnering this year with the Air Force Research Lab. I've mentioned this briefly before, but we have them under contract now to provide state of the art or advanced state of the art robotics. One of the areas that we plan to do a removal on this Spring, we will do it without putting a man anywhere close to a piece of ordinance or within three or four hundred feet. Everything will be robotics. We will take everything out and do all the excavation remotely. Put the material on a sifter. And the only time a person will have to get close to it is after it's been through a sifting-baking process, just to move it for disposal.

And after that, a little bit about where we are headed. We've trained our focus and our contracting methodology at Croft recently. Before I know you were used to seeing the corp engineers here, and we would bring in a contractor. And this contractor would do six months or a years worth of work, and we will change and bring another one. The way our contracts are set up they expire over a two to three year periods. But what we've been able to do this year is to go to Zapata, who was determined through an evaluation process to be one of the absolutely best qualified and best performing small business AE's in the country. And put them under contract to essentially manage all the remainder of the work at Croft. They will be responsible for helping us bring in the subcontractors to do the geophysics, to do the actual removal work, to make sure that our data is kept up-to-date, and that we tell people the good news and the good stories that we have here and make sure that that word gets out. And I'm very, very happy that we were able to get Zapata.

It was a nationwide competition and the total contract value during that competition was two hundred million dollars. So they were competing against the absolute largest AE Firms in the nation. And they did win one of the awards. And one of those reasons was because of the good work they've done here with you.

One of the first things that Zapata will be doing to help us is to develop and implement what I call a Comprehensive Community Education and Awareness Program. If you notice in all the evenings we've talked about institutional controls, and that's essentially come down to most of the time little handouts, some signs in the park, and kind of a hit-and-miss approach to making sure that the community as a whole is educated on the potential for ordnance.

What we plan to do beginning hopefully within the next month or two, is have Zapata help us develop a plan to not only through the hit-and-miss, but develop things that we can use to educate the schoolchildren as you all choose to, videos, coloring books, handouts, anything we can do to improve the public awareness and get the people to understand if they see a piece of ordnance, what they need to do. Not to scare them, but to help them understand what steps they need to take.

That also will include a plan to monitor the development within the community. One of the shortfalls, I guess I would call it, with our approach so far is that we don't have a real good way to stay aware of the changes within the areas where we know that there is a potential for ordnance, but there wasn't any use while we were doing the study. And as time goes on, those land uses change, so our approach to that area will also change.

That's one of the main things we have to do, is to develop a method so we can understand the dynamics of the area, what is going on, and what else we need to work on. That will include any other areas that may potentially have ordnance that we hadn't looked at yet. If we find those, they will be in a position to go and investigate those, to help us understand what approach we need to take for them.

Another large piece of that effort will be to develop a land-use plan for all of the area to include the State Park. The State Park, we did a lot of work there first. We did a lot of removals. We hit those areas very hard where we knew that there was ordnance and there were people. We got those so that everything is safe. The ordnance is gone, but I don't know where the people are. But now we need to look at what else could be there and how we handle and approach it.

If the park decides to expand or change or modify the way they are using land, we won't be able to give them the maximum amount of information to understand where we are ordnance-wise within that park. If we clear everything fully to depth, we want to be able to tell them that for sure. If we only surface clear the area for surface uses, we want to be able to tell them that and help them involve us in their future plan. So if there is an improvement that are required subsurface work, we can do the ordnance clearance to support them or be in a position to do it so that their changes or improvements are not impacted. But that will be one of the big pushes.

The other couple of things that we are planning to do this year, as I mentioned, complete Wedgewood, the little bit that's left to do there, mostly the surrounding areas. We've got a little bit of work where we've used the robotics on OU-6 on Dr. Lowry's property, but that we hope to get finished this year.

And then next year, and I won't go much beyond that, but next year we've got several areas that were identified outside of the park in the last phase of the EEICA where we still need to do removals. So we will start planning at the end of this year to be in a position to start actually doing those removals next year when funding becomes available.

And I guess as a disclaimer, all these are plans. We think we have enough money to get started on them, but as always, it's subject to us being able to get that, so. We've had good luck so far. Your local legislative delegation has been very good at helping us to get money to make sure we address the problems. And I know the RAB has sent a couple of letters to reinforce that, and those have really helped.

And I want to close just with once again saying thank you. And speaking for Corp of Huntsville, Charleston, and everywhere else, we do appreciate your services. And we appreciate your help in this entire program and look forward to working with you for probably the next four or five years. And thank you. That's all I have. Suzy.

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

Thank you, Karl.

For those of you who I've not had the opportunity to even meet over the past several meetings, my name is Suzy McKinney with Zapata Engineering. And Karl has very clearly gone through the new contract and the new approach to the work that will be undertaken here at Croft over the next several years, with Zapata Engineering being the prime contractor.

And what I would like to do first is to introduce who is on our team, and you do have a handout that describes our team members. And on the back of that handout is an organizational chart so you can see how we all fit together. In the past and over the past five years, our contract has been to provide support to the Restoration Advisory Board, all the logistic support. And our scope is now going to be quite a bit extended.

First of all, on our team we do have Blackhawk Geometrics. They will provide our geophysical services, the data collection, and the data discrimination. And with Blackhawk this evening we have Les Clark, who is the manager of the UXO Services Division. And Jim Hill, who will be the project geophysicist or at least managing, if he's not out here on site, the geophysicist who will be out here under those field efforts in the future.

We also have HFA represented on our team, and that is Human Factors Applications. And they have been out here in the past under separate contracts performing removal actions. They are our ordnance contractor, and with HFA this evening we have Rick Hanoski.

We have another team member who will mostly likely not play much of a role for this specific project. For other projects that we might be assigned and awarded under our overall contract would tap into their expertise and their services, and that is CH2MHill, a worldwide engineering company. And they can provide us some additional support as far as some of the engineering projects that might be involved with. They also have offices worldwide that can help us in some of the other projects with mobilization and those types of facilities.

As our scope has increased beyond providing the support to the RAB that we have, internally at Zapata Engineering we are going to have a few new faces. I am the program manager now for the overall ordnance contract. So I will still be involved with the Camp Croft project, but we have assigned Ed Henson as our project manager. And Ed comes to us as a retired Colonel from Shaw Air Force Base, and he will be now our project manager.

As Karl mentioned, we have different elements now under this contract. Where we've had contractors in the past come in and do data collection, and then a different contractor would come in and do the removal or the sampling. All of that will be under our prime contract. And to manage that internally, we are going to have task managers to assist in that.

The first year, as Karl had mentioned, we will be out to finish the Wedgewood area and Dr. Lowry's property. For the field oriented tasks, several of you have met Jason Shiflet, so he will be involved with tracking those specific work efforts. And our next RAB Meeting we will have Jason available and introduce him to you as we get into those field scopes.

We also continue with all of our support to the Restoration Advisory Board, providing all of the logistics and any support that they need. And Yolanda Hubbard is going to help with managing the RAB. We have our 800 toll-free number that still is active; and you can reach any of us in the office as needed, as well as our website, which is on the fact sheet. And we will post the meeting notices, the transcripts, any new activities. That will be maintained regularly.

In addition to the RAB and the technical field efforts, we are also tasked with establishing and maintaining a comprehensive data repository. We have all of these reports, draft reports, final reports; we have all of those available in the library here. Our task will also now include to make sure we have those all electronic, as well as all other pertinent correspondence to this project and develop a website and make that internet accessible.

So that will be quite a undertaking, because as you know, the work efforts for the past five, six, seven years out here and some of those early reports have not been electronic, nor have all those data been available electronically. So we are going to pull all of that together so at a request, it's much more easily available to the public and to the Corp and to those interested in reviewing that information. And as Karl mentioned, the importance of the RAB. We will provide again support to you.

The schedule is over the course of the year we will be proposing and developing the plans for the ongoing field work. As Karl had mentioned, at Wedgewood and Dr. Lowry's property, and then into one of the other units, OOU areas adjacent to the cantonment on area, the formal cantonment area; it's OOU-11 as described up on the map. And that will keep us busy for this first year. And our contract is a five-year contract, and we will provide support as necessary throughout the duration.

Let's me see if I have anything else. I believe that's all that I wanted to cover. Again, was an introduction and refocus on the direction still the same, key players, and hopefully now some more consistency in how this project will be addressed, more efficiencies in spending the funds, and being more effective and productive out in the field.

And that's all I have. Ron.

BY MR. NESBIT

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Ron Nesbit. I'm the project manager from Charleston district. And the Charleston district overall is responsible for the DERP-FUDS Program in the State of South Carolina.

Two things I would like to mention. First of all, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, because I elect that this year has been a very positive one for us. Last year was very positive and we got quite a bit accomplished. One the primary things that we are doing this year is to make certain at the ending of each year in that when we have our RAB Meeting such as we've done in the past, is to outline what our plans are for that coming year. So that you have an idea of what to expect from us based upon the plans that we've already laid on the table. And hopefully, what we have actually been funded for trying to accomplish within that year.

Karl and Suzy has outlined basically what we anticipate accomplishing. I must be the one to mention all of that is depending upon funds that we have available. Each of those tasks that we've set aside even though it may have been funded, may be adjusted accordingly based upon difficulties we may run into of course during the course of the year. So we ask that you keep that in mind if for some reason it appears that we are not really moving forward. A lot of it cost prohibited.

One thing, I did attend the meeting not long ago, which was the Stake Holders Meeting with the Department of Defense and Environmental Engineers and so on. In that meeting all the stake holders that were involved in environmental projects dealing with the government, BID-BRACK, DERP-FUDS, or whatever, came together and had the opportunity to discuss and talk about things that effected their particular communities involving RAB and so on.

I'm happy to say that there are some of you that feel that this RAB has had a lot of problems. Yes, we have had problems, but believe me, we have not had problems. This RAB in itself has been very productive. We've gotten things accomplished. We've actually been able to move in a direction to get to where the community is trying to get to, as well as the government. And that is to clean up the sites of the property, and your property can become usable and safe for everyone. We are not at a point where some would say that we are dysfunctional by a long shot. We are very functional and people are using us as a means of setting up their own RAB's in other communities or other locations. So take that from someone that sort of sat back in a corner and listened to a lot of what was being said. And having the Corp of Engineers sticker on and sitting in the corner feeling like someone was throwing darts at you. Okay. We are very, very productive. Okay. Especially when you consider all the different reasons for people to come together to try to work at a common goal.

The other thing I want to mention is that this year, I don't know exactly when, but I will try to bring our company commander -- my commander, Lieutenant Kernel Hill, to one of our RAB meetings. He expressed a desire to come to meet some of you, and just have the opportunity for you to talk to him. I'm not certain if it will be the next RAB Meeting, but sometime before he leaves, I will try to make that happen. And I just wanted to let you know that he is concerned about what we do, how we do it. And he is constantly involved with headquarters in the division on our behalf in reference to funding.

There is a renewed sense of urgency in Washington about funding for DERP-FUD'S projects. This particular year funding has been reduced overall for the program. Next fiscal year is projected to be increased again, how much I don't know. But it is projected to go back up. Because of the renewed interest in the program in itself.

So what I'm saying to you is, even though it appears that we are not getting a lot done, we are. And we are doing to the type of lobbying for additional funds for this community for the State of South Carolina in itself to move these projects so we can get them completed. And we can move out of the area so that they can be usable property, and piece of mind within those communities. So that's what I wanted to let you know. Thank you.

BY MR. SMITH

Suzy, let me ask one thing. I guess pertaining to maybe some old business at the Wedgewood. Could you tell about your letter? And that's going to be concerning the letter to the people at Wedgewood.

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

The letter of clearance? This one here?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

Yes. Let me respond, if we could. We hope to get those clearance letters out soon. What I've been trying to do is wait until I get the complete final report from UHB. I talked with them today, and they are sending it to the printer. So as soon as that complete report is available, then we will send the clearance letters out as well.

I was reluctant to send them earlier, because if I do and people have questions, they don't have any place to go to get the document that shows exactly where we've cleared and what we've cleared and all that. So hopefully, that report will be out in the next two weeks, and we will get busy getting those clearance statements out.

BY MR. SMITH:

Do we had -- we had no old business, did we?

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

No, unless the board did.

BY MR. HENDERSON:

Clary.

BY MR. SMITH:

Yes.

BY MR. HENDERSON:

Can I ask a question? Do you have the total budget for this year with the excavating you want to do? Did you ever find out ---

BY MR. SMITH:

Speak up. Tell who you are.

BY MR. HENDERSON:

Gary Henderson, Harold Journal.

BY MR. NESBIT:

Okay. The anticipated budget for Camp Croft this year is in the neighborhood of a million dollars.

BY MR. HENDERSON:

Is that funded already?

BY MR. NESBIT:

It has been funded or will -- put it this way. It's incrementally funded, but we are projecting to get the full amount for this year.

Karl has just reminded me that nearly half of it has already been funded. And that was one of the ways of being able to award the contract that we initiated this year already.

BY MR. SMITH:

Do we have any other old news? If there is nothing else, any new business?

BY MR. LOWRY:

I'm Dr. Lowry. There may be another area that I discussed with you this afternoon that I've recently purchased which you may want to sample. I thought I would bring that up tonight.

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

And just to clarify a little bit. As I was saying when we were talking there, there are a number of areas around within the Camp Croft property where we never got rights of entry to go in there and sample. Some of those were in impact areas. And as part of Zapata's task windows, properties change hands.

A lot of times the new owners will be more than happy for us to come and sample and look and investigate those properties. And that's part of our ongoing responsibility here, and we will do that. They will take somewhat of a lower priority than those areas that we've already got planned for removals, just based on the fact that we're not, you know, we don't have a good judge as to what is there or what the risk potential could be, so.

BY MR. HENDERSON:

How much do you have left on Dr. Lowry's property?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

Four and an half acres.

BY MR. HENDERSON:

Out of how many you've cleared now?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

Out of approximately a hundred. And that's a hundred acres cleared. We've sampled -- we investigated three-fifty?

BY MR. LOWRY:

About two-twenty or two-fifty.

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

Two-fifty, okay.

BY MR. SMITH:

New business?

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

We have one request for a statement this evening.

BY MR. OSBORNE:

I'm Harold Osborne. And I'm here to ask for the resignation of all the older board members and not the newer ones. According to what was done to me in 1997, specially with Mr. Bubba Littlejohn. And that some of things that was reported at that time have not been taken care of on certain sites. And Mr. Littlejohn knows which sites they were and did not give this information to other fire districts, which I checked this out. I'm not going to mention the site numbers; I have them.

But we're back to the same thing of things that were supposed to be done that I did, and that the Corp of Engineers has never done anything about; that was reported to Mr. Bogan, which goes back quite a few years. And the location of buried tanks and bunkers. And so far this has still not been taken care of. Nobody has come and ask me where they are at. And I was even asked to go around to different places to find out the old gasoline tanks and so forth. Which I did and reported and nothing has been done.

Under the same thing, as of the bylaws not being taken care of when I removed from this board. Like I said, I am asking for the removal of each and every board member that was over the four years according the bylaws.

BY MR. SMITH:

Thank you, Mr. Osborne. We will receive this as information. Thank you. Any other new business? Jim, I know you in Wedge, but let me ask you a question. Did this satisfy your answer on your letter?

BY MR. FOWLER:

Yes. My primary concern was just to find out when they would respond and have a letter of clearance.

BY MR. SMITH:

Okay. That was one thing I wanted to clear up. Yes?

BY MR. TURNER:

My name is Eric Turner. I'm representing, I guess, more of the recreational community with an interest to a fair number of the trails that are currently in Croft State Park. And we have somewhat of a proposal to enter into some of these areas for running and cycling type use. And some of those possibly -- a lot of those trails have been there for years. We wanted to see what would be necessary in order find out which trails are clear and when these would be cleared or whatever is necessary. I know Gerry is familiar with this. I don't know if it is appropriate to introduce at this time. Is it something that you could examine?

BY MR. PERRY:

Are you talking about the south-side trails?

BY MR. TURNER:

South-side and onto whichever roads on the north-side.

BY MR. PERRY:

That's being dealt with from the Columbia office with the Corp, and I imagine right now with Zapata. Until we get their final recommendations, the board can't really do anything about it.

BY MR. SMITH:

That's out of our hands as far as the trails are being concerned. One of things that Zapata could give is I guess the information if they were closed.

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

Well, we have identified on several of our past handouts the areas that have been cleared under the original removal action. And I have a handout I can provide to you. We've handed that out in the past. And show you where they are, and you can see if your trails intercept any of those areas.

As Karl had mentioned earlier about working with park service this year for the land-use plan to evaluate where those trails are, new trails, new development within the park, then we can be more responsive to education, signs, and brochures, and also subsequent re-mediation and cleanup, and the cleanups if that's where we need to go.

So we will be working directly through the Corp with the park service to work on that plan this year.

BY MR. NESBIT:

I thought I would mention one thing especially in this regard. The question about a number of use within the park has been brought to the Corp by the park service earlier on. And at that time, we did not have available a means of really dealing with the issue. And we had to wait until they actually developed a process for a means to actually deal with some of these issues. Which is what we've got in hand right now with the new signing of the contact that we've got on board. So that through the planning purposes and identification working with the park services, hopefully a lot of these questions will be cleared up. How soon, as soon it takes us to be able to actually get these things studied, and then start making recommendations. Then we will be able to get that kind of information through the park service to you.

BY MR. TURNER:

And that information will be sent from the park service to Zapata Engineering or through this the US --

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

It will be a joint effort to develop the land-use plan or between them, what their land-uses are where the potential ordnance may be. And where we would need to do additional work for them to expand the areas of the services they provide. So there will be joint effort between the Corp and the park service and the community at large, I'm sure.

BY TURNER:

I've been working pretty close with some of the people in the Columbia offices. They've sent apparently two letters, and separate letters, one to Charleston and one to give you guys personally addressing this particular project and along with some other requesting trail requirements too. And as far as an approach to those letters, have you seen those letters? Are you aware of those letters?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

Yes, we both have. And part of the reason for including the land-use planning within the park is for the public awareness and information is specifically that.

We recognize there is a shortfall in having an easily, understandable summary of what's been done within the park and what areas should be available for public use and what type us. And so our approach to taking care of that shortfall is to have Zapata sit with us, go through the old records, and develop that plan. So we know in the future it won't take as long as it's taken to answer the question of, can we put a bike path over here, because we will already have the -- and have in a very clear format so we can understand it.

BY MR. HENDERSON:

Karl, do you know how money that they've spent since -- well, for the last say five years?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

I'm not sure about the last five years. Since we started in '93 or '94, it's somewhere between ten and twelve million dollars.

BY MR. LAPRAIK:

My name is Scott Lapraik. And I'm interested in again the park's usage. And you had mentioned coming up with a plan as to what the hot spots are, what all the hot spots are and everything. What is your timing in having that available to us and to the parks?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

We don't have a specific time frame yet.

BY MR. LAPRAIK:

What's your ---

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

The time frame to start it is as soon as I can get a task order issued to Zapata and funded, which should be within the next two to three months to start that process of planning. A lot of it is pulling information that's already available together, and as well as sitting down with the park service to understand what they have.

BY MR. LAPRAIK:

My question is, have you already contacted Zapata to do that? They've been awarded the contract for ---

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

No. They've been awarded an overall management contract. They have not been awarded a specific task to develop the language planning.

BY MR. LAPRAIK:

They've been contracted to manage this area, right?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

Yes.

BY MR. LAPRAIK:

Manage the ordnance for Croft State Park and the surrounding areas?

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

Yes.

BY MR. LAPRAIK:

Okay. Are those -- my personal opinion is, is that I don't see how or why it should take two to three months to give them a contract to review it if they've already been contracted to support this.

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

I'm sorry. That's the way our contracting works. I mean, we have federal rules and regulations we have to follow in contract to. And it takes some time.

BY MR. ROGERS:

My name is Jack Rodgers and I'm, I guess, another concerned citizen. And I understand that Zapata will be working on a graphical digital map of the area showing the areas that have been cleaned, cleared, and all that, and will be putting it up on the website. Do you have any idea as to when that will happen?

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

Well, again, the ---

BY MR. RODGERS:

It depends on the contract too?

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

On the website we don't have that map. We've provided some general maps that indicate the areas that have been cleared under the past removal actions. It does not have a lot of the topography in the specific trails. We don't have that information yet available. So in general terms, even this evening we can look at the map and show you blocks of areas that have been cleared and to what depths in what time frame. So we do have that.

As far as getting all to compile digitally and pulling together, this is getting data from contractors that have come and gone over the past years, will be within the next several months. Again, coordinating the whole effort. We don't want to be doing it so piecemeal that we have to rework and take a different approach when we get into the agreement that Karl described.

BY MR. RODGERS:

So maybe in say six months we will have that digital information available?

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

I would think.

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

I think that would be the best.

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

It would be out ---

BY MR. NESBIT:

Let me mention also. Let me mention this, if I might. Keep in mind that a lot of the things that we are talking of doing right now, especially with the park service, the digital mapping, and so on and so forth, these are all even though they are not new concepts, these are new things that we are doing now to provide as much information to you as possible as to what is going on or has been going, and how we are going proceed to try to get them accomplished.

So even though we are now establishing a contact to accomplish all of this, it still will take some time before we get to the point where we can automatically go out and actually pull that information up. I know you understand that. But contracting procedures and everything else, delays us even though they may already understand what it is that we have to do, but we still have to follow our contracting procedures during this.

BY MR. BLANKINSHIP:

I've worked with the Corp of Engineers for a lot of years. And there is a good reason for all of this, so I have no complaint.

BY MR. SMITH:

Any other new news?

BY MS. FROMAN:

Well, I would just like to -- my name is Jenneane Froman. I'm here representing the Spartanburg Rose Club, also with some interest in individuals use of trails and that type of thing and so forth.

I don't have personally a clear understanding of what the Restoration Advisory Board is, who you are, how you got there, all of that, you know. Do you set priority as far as what they do and when they do it, or is that done by the Army Corp? I don't quite understand it.

BY MR. SMITH:

We might suggest that they do one project ahead of another one, but they don't have to follow with the Advisory Board on it. We will discuss it. And most of us have got a feeling of the community. And we can give them some advise on which one we think should be used first or fixed first. And that's about our extent of it.

BY MS. FROMAN:

Are you all local to this area?

BY MR. SMITH:

Yes, ma'am, everyone of us.

BY MS. FROMAN:

To this area?

BY MR. SMITH:

Yes, ma'am. Most of us live within, right in within the area. We've got property in it, Dr. Lowry has got, George, and -- well, just about everybody here has been associated with it in some form or fashion. Yes, ma'am. And we are just what the thing says, we're just an advisory. We can suggest, but as Suzy said, they don't have to follow our suggestions. They make the final decision when it's made. Isn't that right?

BY MS. MCKINNEY:

Right. There is a selection process, to give you a little bit more background. The Corp of Engineers based on their funding and the priorities of the sites that they have, have to find a process to evaluate the risks that ordnance sites present to land users. Sites that have been closed, as well as installations that are now closing. And there is a very defined process to address those areas that present a risk, to collect data, to evaluate the data, collect samples, and then propose alternatives to reducing the risk that area might present. And those alternatives can range from the institutional controls that we've talked about, which would be fencing or posting signs or education, depending again upon the risks that that presents. All the way to cleaning and removing ordnance to a specified depth. And those reports are prepared by the contractors that are awarded and funded under the Corp of Engineers.

The Advisory Board, as Clary mentioned, is a representative of the community and provides an opportunity for the entire community to get together on a quarterly basis or as the meetings are set forth, and discuss the alternatives that are presented and provide input and recommendations on those alternatives.

And Mr. Crissinger just whispered an idea to me that -- what I will do is have each one of these individuals introduce themselves and what interests they represent.

There is a selection process for the board for an application every two years. We solicit applications for those that are interested in serving on the board. It is a totally voluntary board. They are not compensated at all in their presence and their input to the projects. So this board actually was selected last year.

And based upon the individuals sitting up here, we've mentioned too, that most of these folks have been on the board for many, many years, because we've just not had applications come in. We have had a few new faces the last two selection processes.

So why don't we start at this end, and I will let each one introduce themselves to you.

BY MR. CRISSINGER:

Joseph L. Crissinger. I go by Chris. I represent McMillin Smith and Partners, a local architect training firm. And I live in North Spartanburg.

BY MR. WILSON:

I'm D.J. Wilson. I'm a construction engineer, and I live in Camp Croft. I live out at the Flagstone area, right in the middle of all of this. And I'm very interested in what's going on down there.

BY MR. LITTLEJOHN:

I'm Bubba Littlejohn, and I live in this community.

BY MR. SMITH:

I'm Clary Smith, and I live on Dairy Ridge Road. And I've been a life-long resident here folks. I was born right where I'm -- within throwing rocks of where I live now. And I run a service station.

BY MR. SMITH:

My name is Sanford Smith. I live on Highway 56. I've been associated in one way or another with Camp Croft since I was six years old. I had to move out of the property, and then we moved to a property that was right across the highway from it. So I've been involved with Camp Croft since I was six.

BY MR. STEWART:

I'm Stonewall Stewart, and I live in Flagstone. And I've been there for about seven years and semi-retired, and now I'm a substitute teaching.

BY MR. MULLINAX:

I'm George Mullinax, retired U.S. Air Force. I came here in '69, and I live in the Camp Croft area.

BY MR. PERRY:

I'm Gerald Perry. I manage Croft State Park.

BY MR. LOWRY: