Connecticut submarine base called 'minefield' of pollution

GROTON, Conn. — For decades, the land around the Navy's oldest submarine base was a dumping ground for whatever it needed to dispose of: sulfuric acid, torpedo fuel, waste oil and incinerator ash.

Now the Pentagon has proposed closing the base, leaving a huge swath of land that contains dozens of acres of polluted soil and groundwater, an Associated Press review of more than 1,000 pages of government documents found.

The Submarine Base New London is among at least seven military bases proposed for closure this year that are polluted, and the Pentagon has estimated it will cost more than $700 million to clean them.

Even some areas that already have been cleaned could pose health risks to construction workers and future residents if the Groton base were to close, the military, state and federal environmental documents show.

Although elected officials have promised to fight the base closure, which they estimate could cost Connecticut 31,500 jobs and $2 billion a year in personal income, Groton officials have already starting thinking about what might replace it.

"I know we'll hear proposals for a waterfront district: parks, hotel, entertainment, condos, retail district and housing," said Paulann H. Sheets, a Groton town councilor and environmental attorney.

But while the Navy pledges $23.9 million toward cleaning the base it opened as a naval station in 1868, officials said Wednesday that cleanup would only be to industrial standards. State officials fear the money won't be nearly enough to make the land fit for residential or recreational use.

"That's not a redevelopment opportunity, that's a minefield of contamination," said Gina McCarthy, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The military has a history of shutting down bases and leaving behind contaminated land. Thirty-four bases closed since 1988 are on the Superfund list of worst toxic waste sites, and none is completely cleaned yet.

In its most recent Defense Environmental Programs report, an annual submission to Congress that outlines the Pentagon's environmental efforts, the Pentagon estimated it would cost more than $700 million to clean the polluted bases proposed for closure.

Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, where petroleum, solvents and pesticides have contaminated the soil and water, is part of a military compound that requires $538 million in cleanup, according to the report. The Concord, Calif., Naval Weapons Station and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, also are heavily polluted.