[CPEO-MEF] CLOSURE: Cleaning up South Weymouth Naval Air Station (MA)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Navy still cleaning up airfield, 16 years later

By Emily Sweeney
Boston Globe (MA)
March 17, 2013

It’s a dirty job, and the Navy has to do it.

The task: cleaning up the former home of the South Weymouth Naval Air  
Station, a property with a history dating back to World War II. In  
the 1940s, blimps that silently patrolled the US coast were housed in  
giant hangars at the air base. Later, modern jets roared down its  
paved runways.

Decades of military use left behind petroleum, heavy metals, and  
volatile organic compounds that settled into the ground water and  
soil on certain parts of the base. Trash and debris were dumped in  
three landfills on the edges of the property. All of that  
contamination earned it a spot on the Environmental Protection  
Agency’s National Priorities List in 1994. Although most of the base  
is considered clean today, the property as a whole is still deemed a  
Superfund site.

The airfield closed in 1997, and over the years tons of contaminated  
soil have been hauled away, dozens of underground oil storage tanks  
have been dug up, and soil, sediment, and ground-water samples have  
been tested and retested. Renamed SouthField, the old base is being  
developed into a mixed-use community within the communities of  
Abington, Rockland, and Weymouth that could eventually encompass up  
to 2,855 homes, as well as shops, offices, and a golf course.
...

For the entire article, see
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2013/03/16/navy-still- 
has-cleanup-task-years-after-closing-south-weymouth-naval-air-station/ 
QkvIK2bvN7h9t5sTxzR32L/story.html

You may need to copy and paste the link.

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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