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Rep. Kline
seeks funding to help clean up Cold War missile site
Minneapolis Star
Tribune - 7/13
A
former Cold War missile site that was intended to protect the
Twin Cities from nuclear attack has come to the forefront of efforts
to clean up 20 obsolete military sites in Minnesota, from radar
installations to prisoner of war camps.
The
former Nike missile site near St. Bonifacius, most recently used
as a firefighters training center, is slated for a $250,000 environmental
study of lead, petroleum and other toxic substances believed to
be on the property.
The
money is part of a $369 billion military spending bill that passed
the U.S. House last week. The money was requested by Rep. John
Kline, R-Minn., a member of the Armed Services Committee, who
has tucked several million dollars' worth of Minnesota defense
contracts into the bill. The Senate has yet to pass a defense
spending bill.
The
money is expected to jump-start the long-stalled decontamination
of the Nike missile site, a 1950s-era relic that the Minnesota
Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is considering designating as
a Superfund cleanup site.
Federal
officials say most of the ground and water pollution at the site
is the result of fire training exercises, and the MPCA said it
is not considered an immediate health risk.
It
is one of 2,743 unused defense installations across the nation
and is among four defunct Twin Cities-area missile sites built
in 1958 to shoot down Soviet bombers at the height of the Cold
War.
Some
now serve industrial or commercial uses.
Some,
like a similar Nike missile site near Farmington, have been bought
as private homesteads.
But
others, like the one outside St. Bonifacius, are vacant and have
fallen largely into disuse.
"It's
pretty nondescript," said Scott Neal, city manager of Eden
Prairie, one of 11 suburban municipalities that once ran the facility
as the Western Area Fire Training Academy (WAFTA). "You could
drive right by it and it wouldn't strike you."
The
study Kline is trying to get funding for is expected to help assess
liability for a final cleanup of the property, which has been
estimated at more than $2.2 million.
The
fire academy was used from 1974, when the Nike missiles were dismantled,
until 1992, when the fire training academy closed down.
Two
major utility companies also trained firefighters at the site
and have been asked to help pay for the cleanup. They are Xcel
Energy (formerly NSP), and Reliant Energy (formerly Minnegasco).
But
efforts to secure a cost-sharing agreement among WAFTA's 11 member
cities, the federal government and the two utilities have broken
down.
In
a letter to the MPCA in April, WAFTA attorney Soren Mattick said
the organization was pulling out of a voluntary cleanup program
because of "lack of cooperation and financial commitment
from the other potentially responsible parties."
WAFTA
now exists solely as a legal ownership entity with potential cleanup
liability for the site. Besides St. Bonifacius and Eden Prairie,
its members are Chanhassen, Chaska, Excelsior, Long Lake, Maple
Plain, Mayer, Mound, Victoria and Watertown.
Although
the site -- known to military officials as Nike Missile Site MSP-70
-- is not considered an immediate health risk, "we'd obviously
like somebody to step in to clean it up as soon as we can,"
said MPCA spokesman Michael Rafferty.
A
plume of groundwater contamination is believed to be spreading
north-to-northeast of the site, toward a wetland and a golf course.
Neal
said there have been several ideas on how to reuse or redevelop
the property, but all of them "fall apart when the issue
of contamination comes up."
Federal
responsibility for the site is assumed through the Defense Department
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manage a Formerly
Used Defense Sites program, including 76 properties in Minnesota.
Most
of the Minnesota sites -- including more than a dozen former World
War II POW camps -- have been cleaned up, though 20 facilities
remain on a U.S. Army Corps list requiring "response action."
With
a legal tangle surrounding cleanup efforts at the St. Bonifacius
missile site, local and federal officials welcome the infusion
of new environmental study dollars from Washington.
Money
for the cleanup itself, though, could still be years away. The
Defense Department contends that most of the pollution was caused
by the fire training academy, while WAFTA maintains it does not
have the resources to clean up the site on its own.
Meanwhile,
federal officials have their own money problems. Funding for the
FUDS program averages $200 million a year, while the cost to clean
up all the former military sites across the country is estimated
at $15 billion.
"You
can see it's going to take a while," said Candy Walters,
a program administrator in Washington.
U.S.
Army Corps officials say they already have put $353,000 into remediation
efforts at the St. Bonifacius site, including hauling out fuel
storage tanks and electrical transformers.
The
cleanup, moreover, is the byproduct of a missile program of historically
doubtful utility, given that the Nike missiles' 90-mile range
could not keep up with the era of supersonic bombers.
Said
Robert Dempsey, a U.S. Army Corps official in St. Paul: "Nike
missiles were defunct almost by the time they were out in the
field."
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