tmo

Ft. Devens has the Funk (not the good kind)

Another hot and humid weekend for Ultimate at Ft. Devens (now known simply as Devens. For those of who don't play Ultimate out this way, Devens is the site of most every major tournament hosted out of the Boston area.

Following last summer's stern warning from Dawn D. about the toxic waste that was dumped in the lakes/ponds near there, I did a little research before deciding if the urge to cool off hits this weekend will outweigh growing gills as a result.

It turns out that after some poor planning on the part of the Army and Natick Laboratories, Ft. Devens qualified as a SuperFund site once it was determined that the ground water tables were being contaminated by any number of lovely inorganic chemical substances.

Toby Mandel of Colgate offers a succint history of the environmental issues at Ft. Devens.

The EPA's rosy description of events.

Finally, I found the CDC's PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT for Ft. Devens, particularly the ol' swimmin' holes. Their outlook is a reassuring, swim at your own risk.

SUMMARY

Fort Devens Sudbury Training Annex (STA) is classified as ATSDR's category of no apparent public health hazard. Few exposures have been identified, and those do not exceed health comparison values. However, a few STA study areas are classified as indeterminate public health hazards because limited groundwater data are available.

How do you recoup your losses from cleaning up a toxic waste site? Of course you develop the area as a community for families.

Suffice to say, I will probably still go swimming.

Posted by at June 27, 2003 05:55 PM