Many neighbors left Wednesday’s Department of Ecology update worried that even after years of work, major parts of Camp Bonneville remain off limits. Ecology staff tried to explain why the former Army training ground, long seen as a future public park, still isn’t close to being opened to regular visitors.
The meeting at Hockinson Middle School was led by Michael Cronin, the state’s site manager and hydrogeologist, and Forrest Malone, the agency’s unexploded ordnance specialist. Both walked through what has been done and what must change before the county can move toward any public use.
Camp Bonneville’s story goes back decades. The Army trained on the 3,840-acre site for most of the 20th century, leaving behind ordnance, lead and other contamination. The Army closed the site in 1995 and transferred it to Clark County in 2006 under the idea that it would someday become a county park. Under county ownership, however, the site has continued to be used for law-enforcement training, and the Clark County Council rejected a proposed deal 2-3 on Tuesday, Aug. 19, to allow the FBI to continue training there, with some citing concerns that thousands of rounds of ammunition were stolen from the site last January. The Clark County Sheriff’s Office is still allowed to use the site for training. The county has not developed a complete master plan for the site, which would set out what the land is actually intended to become.
Cronin told guests how Ecology divided the work into four major areas. Much of the site has been investigated and cleared at the surface or to shallow depths. Some landfills have been excavated. Some old firing ranges have had contaminated soil removed or capped. Large swaths of the central valley floor and parts of the western slopes have been cleared of munitions to varying depths. Through it all, crews have hauled out practice landmines, grenades, small arms rounds, rockets and debris left from decades of training.
During his presentation, Malone showed photos of unexploded ordnance and other hazardous materials that were found. Inert explosive materials were also shown to guests during the event’s meet and greet.
Yet many parts of the 3,840 acres remain unsafe to enter. Some areas were never fully excavated because of safety limits. Others were cleared only on the surface, leaving deeper hazards in place. A few pockets were missed entirely when older plans did not match what crews later found. Ecology says that even though groundwater contamination is limited and isolated, explosive hazards are still the main reason public access must remain restricted.
Cronin told the room that the most immediate problem is not a new round of clearing, but the basic management framework the county needs in order to run the site safely. A Long-Term Operations and Maintenance Plan must be developed by the county to document all actions needed to support long-term maintenance of the cleanups.
“That plan has not been developed yet and that plan is required by the consent decree for the site and for the cleanup action plans for this site,” he said.
Additionally, many of the institutional controls that are already required have not been fully put in place. Some fences are down. Some signs are missing. A covenant for the central impact area has not been recorded. Ecology says these controls must be installed and maintained before the site can move toward any public access.
Several restrictive covenants still need to be recorded to lock long-term protections in place. These include covenants for parts of the Western Slopes and soil cover areas on certain ranges, where caps need routine inspection and upkeep to prevent exposure of contaminated soil.
Ecology also noted a separate gap involving vapor intrusion, an exposure pathway that was never evaluated during earlier cleanup work in one of the site’s major units. Two buildings, “T-1932 and 4475,” are known or suspected to sit above remaining contamination that could release harmful or even combustible vapors. Ecology said the county will need to complete a vapor intrusion assessment before either building can be occupied, and depending on the findings, long-term controls or vapor systems may be required through a revised covenant.
Cronin also explained that Clark County’s 2005 reuse plan no longer fits the reality of the cleanup. The plan assumes activities that would disturb soil below cleared depths or take place in areas that were never cleared at all. Ecology says the county needs to update the plan so future park designs reflect where people can safely go and allowable uses. If the long-term use plan and institutional controls are updated, certain areas unsafe for visitation can either receive clearance required by the cleanup action plan or become restricted.
During the Q&A, residents kept circling back to one question: when and how Camp Bonneville can ever be opened to the public?
Clark County’s Kevin Tyler, the division manager for lands management, stepped to the microphone. Tyler explained that the county relies on the older reuse plan, which listed possibilities ranging from a regional park to a law-enforcement training center. Turning that into a modern master plan is the county’s job, but he said that cannot happen yet.
“We can’t do that until we work through many of the things that Michael here talked about,” he said, pointing to the remaining cleanup issues.
That answer didn’t ease all the concerns in the room.
Jim Byrne, with Friends of Clark County, raised what he called a troubling line in the draft periodic review.
“For future use as a regional park, based solely on activities in the 2005 reuse plan, the cleanup actions are not protective of human health and the environment,” he read aloud.
He asked how Ecology could reconcile that with the idea of a future park. Cronin did not downplay the statement.
“That is one of the fundamental findings of this periodic review,” he said. “This can’t be a future park unless the institutional controls are in place and documented… and the master park plan is developed to eliminate the areas in the 2005 reuse plan where cleanup wasn’t undertaken or doesn’t align with that intended use.”
Anne Shaw, one of the founders of Friends of Camp Bonneville, brought five display boards and a stack of documents to help residents understand the group’s long-standing concerns. Her property borders the southern edge of Camp Bonneville.
Shaw displayed maps showing uncleared anomalies left deeper than 14 inches on the central valley floor. The draft produced by Ecology shows 722 locations documented with suspect materials lower than 14 inches, and more areas where clearance was not possible due to terrain too steep to access or areas being actively used by the FBI during earlier cleanup work.
“There are 722 of them,” she said. “Tests were done on three of these anomalies and all turned out to be UXO … So the EPA has always recommended at these sites that a 24-inch depth clearance in an area like this is more appropriate because it eliminates the need for institutional controls.”
Shaw said she supports the idea of a park but did not believe current conditions meet that goal.
“Ecology has already said that the current status of the property… is not protective of human health and the environment,” she said. “There’s nothing about that that allows public use of the property yet.”
Clark County Councilor Glen Yung attended the meeting and stayed for the entire Q&A. He said residents’ questions were appropriate and, in many cases, shared by county officials.
“I’m glad they brought them up because I would like to know the answer to them as well,” he said.
Yung said Ecology handled the questions “well,” adding that he planned to request written responses so he could follow up himself.
When asked about future use, Yung said that decision should come from the community.
“I’m open to anything as long as it is compliant with the reconveyance,” he said. “As long as it’s compliant, I’m OK with whatever the community wants to do with it.”
Yung said the meeting itself was useful.
“You had people that are frustrated by the process that were able to speak directly with the people doing the work,” he said. “That inability to do that often leads to a lot of mistrust… I thought it was very productive.”
