Don't pick it up. Don't kick it. Don't stray off the path. Those were the admonitions given by safety officer Steve Burhans, prior to a press tour of the old Proving Grounds once used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Belvoir.
Beginning last October, a clearing process began on 170 acres of the 820 acre Proving Grounds as the first step to turning the land over to the Virginia Department of Transportation for the final link of the Fairfax County Parkway. It is expected to be completed by the spring of 2005.
Beginning in 1940, and continuing until approximately 20 years ago, the Proving Grounds were used by the Corps to test training ordinance. Although it primarily involved land mines there were also a number of other training explosives, such as grenades.
"There are a number of things to be cleaned up," said Mike Dickey, Baltimore District, Corps of Engineers, prior to leaving for the ranges last Thursday. "The primary concern are live training mines with fuse ignitors."
"The caps have a potential power comparable to about four M-80 fire works," Dickey said. "They can't kill you but they can do some serious damage if you inadvertently strike one."
Thus far, only five potentially dangerous items have been located. All were located on Range Four. There are five ranges being cleared by Conti Environmental, Inc., a New Jersey environmental safety firm, according to Dickey.
"If an unexploded ordinance, known as UXO, can not be safely removed, it is exploded in place. This is done by building a sandbag bunker around it and then detonating it," Dickey said.
SOME OF THE ranges are contiguous to local residences and border Fairfax County's Rolling Road. If a UXO is discovered within 200 feet of the roadway, traffic must be halted until it is detonated. "This has happened only once," according to Dickey. "The traffic delay last about 15 minutes."
In addition to various ordinance, the area also served as a testing area for ammunition storage, other demolition activities, and even paint testing, according to Belvoir historian Gus Person. "There was even a small airfield on the site during World War II. But the primary use was mine and counter mine testing," he explained.
"Overall there are approximately 39 structures on the property. Some have historic significance. Those have been identified by the National Register of Historic Places and will be preserved," Person said. "The Corps of Engineers left Belvoir in 1989. They are now headquartered at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri."
"The Department of The Army authorized the cleanup in order to make the land safe for transfer. It is a long and tedious process done by crews operating geophysical detectors in the field," said Lt.Col. Kevin Tate, Belvoir Directorate of Public Works.
The area being cleared also contains a number of old ammunition storage bunkers, concrete observation bunkers, and one rather rickety looking observation tower that stands about three stories tall. The fields, now clear cut of all vegetation, are littered with tiny flags of various colors designating search areas.
"The majority of mines used by the Corps were dummies filled with wax and a small blasting charge. It would detonate when an object passed over it," Tate explained. "The Army also used the ranges to develop mine detection techniques."
SEARCHES ARE done in 100-by-100 yard square areas using a geophysical cart that can detect to a depth of approximately two feet, according to Penny Johnson, a geophysical specialist. "The equipment will detect any inert metal in the ground," she said.
Each detection device rides on two bicycle size wheels and is comprised of an open box-shaped metal frame equipped with a global positioning system. It is pulled by hand over the surface scanning for any metal object and recording information on data equipment carried in a backpack by the specialists, according to Johnson. At the end of each day the data is fed into a computer.
"The two-foot depth is normal for the type ordinance tested," Tate clarified. "We have also removed 30 tons of trash from the surface. After the area is cleared, surveying equipment will be brought back to complete the plotting."
In addition to discovering approximately 16 mines thus far, the seven person crews working the ranges have unearthed metal pipes, training grenades, tear gas grenades and gas cylinders. It is all done by hand, walking the 170 acres.
To emphasize the purpose of the warning at the commencement of the tour, the hosts displayed what looked like a harmless, rather beat up, tin can. It was actually a rusting gas canister with a detonator inside.