MONTEREY, Calif. — Along a seemingly a pristine stretch of Central California coastline, the Army is digging holes and sifting through a mountain of sand, looking for unexploded artillery shells, rocket propelled grenades and other ordnance buried at the former Ft. Ord infantry base.
The last soldiers marched out of Ft. Ord 10 years ago, but so far the Army has cleared just 5% of the base's firing range. The Army has unearthed more than 8,000 live shells, and the job could take another 20 years. Even then, Army officials can't guarantee they will get every last bit of ordnance.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday April 15, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 45 words Type of Material: Correction
Military bases -- A map in Sunday's Section A with an article about the closing and cleanup of military facilities labeled two bases as Hunters Point. The closed facility in California is Hunters Point Naval Shipyard; the one in Maine is Loring Air Force Base.
The issues at Ft. Ord, which overlooks Monterey Bay, mirror a long list of environmental and economic disasters at closed bases across the nation, where critics say the Pentagon has badly mismanaged the cleanup and redevelopment process.
In coming weeks, the Defense Department will unveil its biggest effort yet to eliminate surplus military capacity, ordering the closure of as many as 24% of its facilities. Since 1998, there have been four rounds of military base closures.
"The economic devastation is great," said Harry Kelso, chairman of Base Closure Partners, an advisor to base communities. "It hits the local schools, the businesses that supported the base, and you lose the direct jobs at the base. Then on top of all that, you have a contaminated piece of property."
Radioactive contamination, lawsuits, leaking underground tanks, lost jobs, dilapidated buildings, broken promises, asbestos-laden soil and unexploded ordnance are just a sampling of the problems that have led to growing dissatisfaction and in some cases anger on both the military and civilian sides.
In almost every case, it has taken military services far longer than expected to clean up pollution at the facilities and turn the land over to local communities for redevelopment.
And once local agencies have received land deeds and Pentagon assurances that pollution was properly cleaned up, they have typically discovered environmental time bombs.
"We would like to see a lot more funding to get this cleanup moving faster," said David Brandt, an Alameda, Calif., assistant city attorney involved in redeveloping the former Alameda Naval Air Station, which was shuttered 10 years ago and still has massive contamination. "You have to spin your wheels while you wait for the federal government."
