<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Camp Bonneville money sought

County presses Army for up to $40 million more to finish cleanup

By Erik Robinson
Published: January 21, 2010, 12:00am

County presses Army for up to $40 million more to finish cleanup

Four years ago, critics of Clark County’s plan to take a former Army military reservation raised concern that the Army was understating the hazard at Camp Bonneville.

Now, in an administrative appeal that culminates a long-running dispute between the Army and the county’s lead cleanup contractor, the county is asking for another $30 million to $40 million in federal funding to remove old munitions. The county’s case essentially boils down to this:

The critics had a point.

Read the claim and supporting documents at http://www.columbian.com/documents

“The Army’s data in fact was grossly inadequate,” according to the claim. “The originally defined scope and estimated costs of the work are no longer valid, and existing project funding is woefully inadequate.”

Read the claim and supporting documents at http://www.columbian.com/documents

The stalemate threatens to scuttle the county’s plan to turn the former artillery range into a large regional park and nature preserve.

The cleanup stopped late last year, after the subcontractor tasked with removing unexploded ordnance left the site after Army funding began to run dry. The president of the nonprofit organization heading the cleanup — Bonneville Conservation Restoration & Renewal Team — said the cleanup will remain on hold until the Army capitulates.

“We need the Army to take responsibility and fulfill its obligations,” Mike Gage, BCRRT president, said in a prepared statement.

Army officials declined to comment on the claim, which Gage authored on the county’s behalf.

The county still envisions a park on the 3,840-acre site, which the Army used as a training ground and artillery range between 1909 and 1995.

Contractors have found hundreds of munitions in areas the Army generally characterized as having low to negligible risks. Army officials have previously resisted additional funding for the cleanup, arguing that it already provided $28.6 million under the provisions of a fixed-price contract signed by the county in October of 2006. A year ago, the Army raised alarm about the contractors’ spending habits, which have included expensive meals, bar tabs and gift boxes.

County officials aren’t ready to give up on converting the site to a park.

“I don’t think we’re at that stage yet,” said Jerry Barnett, the county project manager who is overseeing the cleanup. “We’re still in the middle of the cleanup and intending to get funding to continue the cleanup.”

Gage now says munitions removal will cost another $30 million to $40 million, on top of the $28.6 million already provided by the Army to prepare the area for use as a future county park. A total of $22.7 million goes to the contractors, with the remainder split between a relatively small insurance plan and administrative oversight by county and state agencies.

The county staked its interest in Camp Bonneville in 2006.

Under an early-transfer arrangement, the Army was to convey the property to the county with enough money to clean it up as a park and nature preserve. At the time, development was rampant in Southwest Washington and county officials wanted to conserve the wooded acreage in the Cascade foothills.

But critics raised concern that the Army was understating the hazard.

Two months before the early transfer, Army officials turned up the heat when county commissioners delayed acceptance.

“I think you’re passing on a significant opportunity,” Mark Jones, of the Department of the Army, told commissioners on Aug. 15, 2006. “We are an Army at war — the money for installations is significantly at risk.”

According to a Columbian account of the meeting, then-Commissioner Betty Sue Morris challenged those critics to speak up “if any of these people are lying.”

Two months later, the county accepted the early transfer.

Now, Gage is making exactly the point critics of the transfer made four years ago. In the claim, made public Wednesday, Gage argues that the county and BCRRT accepted the early transfer based on site descriptions “that the Army zealously represented as complete and accurate.”

One problem: The descriptions turned out to be “grossly erroneous,” according to Gage.

Neither the county nor BCRRT conducted its own field investigation, despite red flags raised by the Environmental Protection Agency three years before. The EPA washed its hands of cleanup oversight in 2003, specifically citing the Army’s inability or unwillingness to properly investigate the extent of pollution at the site.

Now, Gage concedes that those concerns were well-founded.

He contends that the Army’s funding for the cleanup is “woefully inadequate” for the task at hand. Munitions cleanup was estimated to consume $10.7 million of the $26.8 million provided by the Army, but Gage now estimates a three- to fourfold increase in the cost of removing munitions; after accounting for insurance payouts, Gage figures the Army will need to pony up another $30 million to $40 million.

mobile phone icon
Take the news everywhere you go.
Download The Columbian app:
Download The Columbian app for Android on Google PlayDownload The Columbian app for iOS on the Apple App Store

“These costs dwarf those contemplated in the design and negotiation of the project agreements,” according to the appeal. “The fundamental cause of these overruns was the inaccuracies of the Army-provided site characterization information.”

Presaging a possible legal battle, Gage makes several citations of case law in arguing that the Army breached its contract with the county.

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 or erik.robinson@columbian.com.

Loading...