State Park Activities

Former Camp Wolters

OE Engineering Evaluation and Cost Analysis

Mineral Wells, TX

TPP Meeting 1

November 18 and 19, 2002

TPP Meeting 1, Day 1

The Former Camp Wolters EE/CA TPP Meeting 1 was held at the Best Western Inn in Mineral Wells. The purpose of this meeting was to introduce the Ft. Worth District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) (CESWF), the Huntsville Center for Expertise (CEHNC) and the Contractor, EOD Technology, Inc. (EODT), to the stakeholders. Additional objectives were to identify the stakeholder concerns and objectives with regards to the Former Camp Wolters. The result of this meeting was to generate a list of project objectives and to draft a project goal statement.

The TPP Meeting commenced with a presentation by Brian Condike of CESWF about the history of former Camp Wolters and the Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) Program. A brief synopsis of the project was provided: it was explained that the project is currently in the investigation phase, and once the investigation is complete, a remedial design culminating in a removal action will be performed. After the removal is completed, Recurring Reviews will occur at least every 5 years to ensure that the removal was successful and that no additional actions need to be conducted on site.

After the scope of the project was explained, the stakeholders expressed concern about the length of the process (from investigation to removal), and how the public would be informed about the hazards associated with ordnance. The primary concern was that since ordnance has been on site for years, most residents don’t see it as a hazard.

The remainder of the first day of meetings consisted of a roundtable discussion of concerns, land uses (current and future), ordnance exposures, and site conditions. Discussion topics were broken down into categories for analysis and grouping. Specific points of discussion were:

State Park Activities

345,000 visitors to the park each year, 330 acres around Lake Mineral Wells. Activities at the Park include:

- Camping (camp fires).

- Deer hunting, youth hunt each year.

- Rock climbing.

- Fishing.

- Horseback riding.

- Hiking.

- Bicycling (both on and off trails).

Agricultural Activities

- Grazing, wheat, oats.

- Some four-wheeling occurs on private properties.

- Controlled burns are occasionally conducted by the Forest Service for the purpose of brush clearing and Fire Training on the north end of Parker County.

- Search and Rescue Training is conduced in the North area.

Education/Notification

- What is liability of inaction?

- Notification to landowner, or publishing information to land titles should be evaluated.

- Education of new landowners is important.

- Impact of ordnance investigation and removal, also impact of no action.

- There is an opportunity to tie-in with existing educational programs.

- There should be coordination with the fire department to integrate UXO education into fire prevention program.

Investigation

- How long will investigation take?

- Focus investigation to high risk areas.

- How do we treat areas with high population?

- Stability of old ordnance.

Mineral Exploration

- Extensive gas lines on site.

- New construction is occurring.

- Gas gathering lines (between wellheads) may not be marked.

- Transmission lines on site.

- There is a gas easement at the High school.

- Pumping stations are in the northern part of the property.

- Some oil wells are onsite, but gas is the primary mineral exploited on site.

- There is a Transmission Gas line in Southeast corner of the site.

National Guard

- Tank training, hand grenade court, target construction and maintenance, and infantry maneuvers at current TX ARNG base on site.

- There is a mortar line in the northern part of the site at the former Nike site

Site Conditions

- Weatherford is growing both commercially and residentially.

- Most residences have city water.

- Septic tanks.

- Road grading.

- High school/college/state prison.

- Day care to be built.

- Future fire training area.

TPP Meeting 1, Day 2

The second day’s meeting commenced with a review of the discussion topics from Day 1. Meeting notes were distributed and reviewed by all the attendees. Additionally, representatives from Devon Gas Services were in attendance, and presented a map of the gas pipeline locations.

The second day of meetings consisted of reducing the information gathered during the previous day’s meeting into definable project objectives and a project goal statement. The project goal represents the project “walk-away” statement, or condition that the site should be in at the completion of the project. For the Former Camp Wolters, the project goal was determined to be:

“To identify, prioritize, and address residual munitions sites at the Former Camp Wolters to protect the public interest and welfare through educational and remediation activites.”

To support the project goal, a set of project objectives were established. These project objectives were designed to provide more specific actions that must be undertaken to achieve the project goal. For the Former Camp Wolters project, the following three project objectives were developed:

1) To investigate and clear UXO hazards from the following areas:

- Wolters Village.

- Residential area in and around Laurie Drive.

- National guard training area.

- Industrial Park.

- Rural residential areas.

- Landfill, chemical disposal site.

- High school.

- Agricultural.

- Commercial.

- Industrial Park.

2) To educate the public of UXO hazards:

- Incorporate into Fire Prevention program.

- State park brochures.

- State Park information kiosk.

- Mineral Wells State Park website links and information.

- Press Releases.

- School Education.

3) To protect existing natural gas infrastructure

A public meeting was scheduled for the week of January 20, 2003, to disseminate the information from the TPP Meeting.

Although the TPP Meeting 1 in Mineral Wells was successful in determining project goals and objectives, the meeting was not well attended by Stakeholders from Parker County. It was decided that an additional Meeting 1 would be held at a Parker County location to ensure that their concerns would also be addressed.

Meeting Attendees:

Jeanette Ender

Mineral Wells Chamber of Commerce

(940) 325-2557

jender@minealwellstx.com

Leonard Ayers

Mineral Wells Police Department

(940) 328-7770

Lance Howerton

City of Mineral Wells

(940) 328-7703

cityofmw@msh.net