Landfill Four is coated in plastic to prevent erosion and movement of the pollution from rain. The yellow posts in the background mark a test well that is used to monitor ammonium perchlorate levels in the groundwater.
Camp Bonneville is a decommissioned military installation in Clark County. The US Army used this forested area for target practice, including the firing of missiles. The camp was also used as a munitions landfill. These buried munitions have caused a toxic underground plume of ammonium perchlorate to develop.
This carcinogenic contamiannt has poisoned the groundwater in the area. The Army, under the watch of the Washington State Department of Ecology, must clear the area of contaminated soil and the remaining debris. Live munitions have been recovered, and they are detonated on site. Two large pits were discovered that contained civillian fireworks, and the Army states that these fireworks may be a prime culprit for the perchlorate contamination.
These photos are of landfill four, a location at the camp where various munitions were recovered. This area has been excavated to 18 feet below grade thus far, and the contaminated soil is being trucked to another landfill for toxic substances in Oregon. New dirt will be trucked in when the Department of Ecology declares the soils to be sufficiently void of toxic substances. The Army is responsible for cleaning up approximately 4000 acres at this location, but in 8 years, has only proceeded to excavate 5 acres. The Army has contracted a California Based company called Tetra Tech, a subsidiary of Haliburton, for the decontamination process.
A citizen group has worked for the past four years to oversee this decontamination process, and their efforts are being studied by the US Department of Defense. Due to the pollution at the site, the citizen group has successfully halted the transfer of the property to the County’s Parks and Recreation Department. The Cowlitz Tribe has also discovered documentation that may prove the camp to have been a Native American settlement. Army records indicate the discovery of “bone” at the camp, an indication of a possible burial ground. This discovery could require additional research of artifacts that may be part of the landscape at the camp.
Scrap metal and detonated munitions are hauled away in these barrels.
This location marks the pits where fireworks were discovered. The city and county buried confiscated fireworks in these pits. The fireworks were supposedly destroyed by open burning them first, but contractors found fireworks that had not been burned.
These trucks are used to haul the soil from landfill four. They are also used to haul the contaminated soil to the landfill in Oregon. Worried neighbors reported that these trucks may have been dropping contaminated slush in their neighborhood during a rainstorm.
Contaminated soil is piled high in a field, where it is sifted and made ready for transport with heavy machinery.
Truckloads of fresh dirt have been trucked into the site for backfill in landfill four. The soil is brought in from Oregon about 100 miles away, and is said to have the same yellowish color as the native soil on the site. This pile of soil is located in close proximity to the heavily contaminated soil that is being removed.
