The April 28 editorial, “Resume the cleanup: Camp Bonneville offers great potential; county must continue to press Army officials,” didn’t exactly ring true in all aspects. The Army did not pay contractors or subcontractors. The Army paid Clark County $28.6 million for the cleanup as per the fast-track contract, which it signed with the county and with the blessing of our governor to clean up Camp Bonneville.
The county contracted with Mike Gage’s Bonneville Conservation Restoration and Renewal Team and he in turn hired subcontractors to assist in the cleanup. The county, under the oversight of Jerry Barnett, the county’s project manager for Camp Bonneville, made payments to Gage’s firm. This was all done over the objections of a number of veterans who attended meetings with both the Clark County Commissioners and others. Many of these veterans had experience with unexploded ordnance and tried to tell anyone that would listen that Camp Bonneville could not be cleaned up for the amount of money given to the county for that purpose. Letters were even written to the governor pleading with her to not approve the transfer of the property. Secondly, no mention was made of past deaths from unexploded ordnance at Camp Elliot in California after it was supposedly cleaned up to government standards.
John Oxford
Woodland
