Mortars from World War II (photo courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
The Camp Wheeler site stretches across Bibb and Twiggs Counties. Surveyors walked 180 miles over nearly 13-thousand acres using metal detectors. They found and detonated three mortars.
Corps project manager Julie Hiscox says cleanup could begin in 2013, but they’ll have to ask Congress for funding. She says the site is their highest priority in Georgia.
“Some are petroleum sites. Some are other kinds of contamination and there are some other military munitions sites in the state. We don’t have any others that are as high a risk as Camp Wheeler.”
The surveyors also found grenade fragments in Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Cleanup could take 8 years.
