Published in the Asbury Park Press
By KIRK MOORE
STAFF WRITER
LAKEHURST -- He's already heard too many dueling experts debate the future of the Bomarc missile site and its contaminated soil.
But Manchester resident Dana T. Hughes was glad yesterday after meeting with a team from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
"It's very confusing. We've had so many experts trotted before us," Hughes said. "Now we've got another federal agency interested. And if they need more information, they'll go up and do their own testing. So that's encouraging."
Amid a controversy over Air Force plans to remove plutonium-tainted soil from the missile site, agency experts arrived this week as part of their own long-planned public health assessment of Superfund waste sites associated with McGuire Air Force Base.
About 40 people came to an informal three-hour session here, to talk frankly about their concerns, offer information to the agency and learn what its workers know.
"This is very fortuitous. It's our job to address community concerns," said Lt. Cmdr. Danielle DeVoney, an officer and environmental toxicologist with the U.S. Public Health Service.
The agency for toxic substances is a civilian health agency that advises federal environmental officials about the health impact of pollution problems. It has been busy in Ocean County recently, working on the incidence of elevated levels of childhood cancer in Dover Township and investigating autism cases in Brick.
Local opposition to the Air Force plan to truck almost 9,000 cubic yards of soil through Lakehurst and neighboring Jackson and Manchester threatens to stymie a cleanup at the old missile base, site of a June 1960 missile fire that melted a nuclear warhead and salted the surrounding soil and concrete with several ounces of plutonium.
The controversy erupted when the Air Force unveiled its work plan early this year. Meanwhile, the agency for toxic substances was working on its public health assessment, a standard requirement for any site on the Superfund list.
The agency plans two reports: one on old landfills, fueling and storage areas at McGuire Air Force Base in Burlington County, and a separate paper on the Bomarc site, a Cold War Air Force facility located on Army land in Plumsted.
"We're mid-stream in our process" and still gathering information and documents from the Air Force and other agencies, DeVoney said. The report will cover environmental facts, possible "health outcomes" from various scenarios, and community concerns, she said.
"The missile is only part of it," DeVoney noted.
The anti-aircraft battery has other potential pollution problems that may remain since it closed in 1972. There were oil tanks on the site, and de-fueling pits where missile workers handled toxic liquid fuels and oxidizers used in 1960-vintage Bomarcs.
There is still so much work ahead that it's difficult to promise a completed report in anything less than a year, DeVoney said, adding, "I recognize there's a need in the community for this information, so we'll do what we can."
Area residents asked agency workers about the dangers from plutonium. The heavy radioactive metal poses a hazard if it's ingested, breathed in or somehow eaten, whereupon the plutonium's alpha radiation comes into contact with body tissues.
It's believed the plutonium has not moved far since the fire 40 years ago, because it's not soluble in water and tends to adhere to soil particles, agency workers say. But they also said it's likely they will conduct some of their own sampling at the site.
"People have been able to tell us what they really think," said Marie Teran MacIver, a community involvement specialist with the agency.
A second meeting is planned for 5 to 8 p.m. today at the New Hanover municipal building, on Hockamick Road in the Cookstown section.
People who want to offer concerns or information about the McGuire or Bomard sites can contact MacIver by phone at 1-888-42ATSDR ((888) 422-8737) ext. 0649 , or by e-mail at mnto@cdc.gov, or they can call Tom Mignone of the agency regional office, (212) 637-4306.
DeVoney said agency workers are also interested in information local residents can offer about activity around the Bomarc site in the years after it went out of service.
Some Jackson residents and outdoors enthusiasts who use the nearby Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area have suggested civilians may have been exposed by trespassing on the site over the years, despite military efforts to keep the old Bomarc missile shelters secure with fencing and patrols.
Bomarc is an acronym derived from prime contractors who built the missiles: the Boeing Co. and the Michigan Aeronautical Research Corp.
Published on June 1, 2000
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