St. Petersburg Times
July 13, 2003

What wartime hazards lie beneath soil?
Questions may finally be answered. Government documents offer clues. The Army trained with mustard gas and other agents in the '40s.

By WILL VAN SANT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 13, 2003

BROOKSVILLE - Joan Cuka, 69, remembers the young men who came to what was the Brooksville Army Airfield during World War II.

She remembers the B-52 bombers and the barracks and all of the Brooksville women who were smitten and ended up marrying the servicemen.

The training with chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas in what is now the Hernando County Airport area, however, was not something talked about at the time.

"I never dreamed it was a problem here," said Cuka, who was raised east of Brooksville and has operated the Aquarius Beauty Salon & Boutique near the intersection of Spring Hill Drive and U.S. 41 for 30 years.

Federal officials have sought for decades to determine just what the Army Chemical Warfare Service left behind from its testing and training in 1945 and 1946. Historical documents have been reviewed. Money has been allocated for study and possible cleanup, but never spent.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government began to get serious about assessing what chemical warfare agents were left behind at defunct military bases across the country. In Florida, the Brooksville Army Airfield site is the government's priority, and roughly $1-million has now been set aside to dig for mustard gas and other chemical agents.

Finally, questions about what is under the soil may be answered.

"It's going to feel very, very good," said Robert Bridgers, a Formerly Used Defense Sites program manager in the Army Corps of Engineers office in Jacksonville. "We like to see progress."

Clearing of brush at the sites - there are more than one, but because of safety and security concerns the government is withholding their exact locations - has already begun. The entire project, which involves intensive safety training before shovels go in the ground, is expected to end in September.

Corps officials are overseeing the work, which will be carried out in conjunction with private contractors. On Monday night, the corps is holding a public meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. at Chocachatti Elementary School, 4135 California St., south of Brooksville.

Officials will be on hand to answer questions about the project and give an overview of the chemical warfare training done in the area. Some of that information may come, officials say, from declassified reports reviewed as part of the government's effort to locate abandoned chemical warfare agents.

Though specifics are few, government documents and news reports give some information about what occurred at the Army base, which was turned over to the city of Brooksville in 1947.

The Brooksville Army Airfield was built in 1943 as an auxiliary base to MacDill Field in Tampa. Two years later, the Chemical Warfare Service began its work.

Mustard gas-carrying munitions were released, and the potentially lethal chemical, which causes blistering of the skin, eyes and bronchial passages, was stored in the area.

To familiarize soldiers with the effects of chemical agents, training was done using small glass vials containing chemical weapons. The vials were broken during drills.

In 1963, an aviation worker came across one of the vials. It contained mustard gas, and the man was hospitalized for several days. Soil in the area was found to be contaminated with mustard gas.

Federal officials say there is evidence that 127 bombs loaded with chemicals were buried at one of two sites of concern in the airfield area, and no indication that they were ever retrieved.

According to government documents, a "toxic gas yard" - where the aviation worker was injured - and the site of the possible abandoned chemical bombs are near one another. The second area, according to the documents, was used to load chemical weapons for transportation purposes and as a disposal site for "leakers."

"I have heard information from people that were involved in that era that if you had a leaking chemical item, an acceptable way of dealing with it was to bury it," Bridgers said.

During the project, several safety measures will be in place.

The federal government is paying Hernando County $49,224 to have an ambulance at the ready, the air will be monitored for harmful chemical agents and a helicopter will be on call to transport injured workers to Tampa General Hospital if disaster strikes.

Some of the excavation work will be done in structures meant to contain any dangerous chemicals unearthed.

While safety and caution are critical in such work, officials say there is little to fear. If a mustard gas bomb were poised to burst, releasing dangerous toxins into the air, it would have likely done so long ago, they say.

- Information from Times files was used in this report. Will Van Sant covers Hernando County government and can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to vansant@sptimes.com
If you go

The Army Corps of Engineers will hold a public meeting Monday night from 6 to 8 p.m. at Chocachatti Elementary School, 4135 California St., south of Brooksville.