Erasing a Radar Station

From the Crosby, ND Journal

By Cecile Wehrman

Valley County Commissioners in Montana fought for years to get a government clean-up of an old radar station there.

Today, remnants of the former Opheim Radar Station, about two hours west of the state line, have been virtually erased. The site was recently purchased by a California couple for use as a new home site.

It`s an outcome former Valley County Commissioner Eleanor Pratt still marvels at.

"It took 10 years," Pratt said last week.

She believes Divide County could one day accomplish the same outcome, but it will take some luck, and possibly, some polite arm-twisting.

Deja vu

The story of the Opheim Radar Station clean-up reads like it could have been written in Divide County. Just substitute the name "Fortuna" in the title, and much of the story is identical.

The radar installation was one of more than 100 such outposts scattered along the northern tier of the United States and Canada when it was built in the 1950s. About two-thirds the size of it`s bigger cousin at Fortuna, Opheim contained a full complement of support buildings from a mess hall, to barracks -- even a bowling alley. A large concrete tower served as the main listening post for tracking air traffic.

Like the town of Fortuna, Opheim is a port of entry into Canada. The 55 acre base was located about 3 miles west of the town site on a flat stretch of high prairie.

The base was decommissioned in 1983, around the same time as Fortuna, but here the stories of the two bases diverge. While Fortuna was maintained by custodians for several years in anticipation of a possible future use, Opheim was immediately quit-claimed to a group of Valley County men for a sum of $91,555.

"There were no stipulations as to possible environmental problems or liability and no assurances were sought from the buyers that they would maintain the property in any particular manner," according to a memo written by the Valley County sanitarian in 1993.

Later, the property ownership was transferred to a Washington State man. Fortuna may have sat idle for years longer, but the salvage operation eventually undertaken at both sites and the health and safety concerns arising from the demolitions are almost identical.

Blasting for dollars

"I can`t understand them selling it to three guys with no instructions," said Evan Granrud, a native of Columbus who for decades was the civilian maintenance head on site at Opheim. Today he still lives in Opheim, and watched first hand, the destruction of his one-time work place when the big old tower finally was pushed with a backhoe into a big pit in 1998.

"It just about killed me to watch it because I`d been keeping the scratches off it for 20 years," Granrud said.

Worse, if possible, was watching the original set of salvagers botch the job of dismantling the place.

"The first thing they did was use dynamite to blow the tin off the buildings," Granrud said. The resulting explosions broke all the windows on the base. Pratt says an attempt to dynamite the big concrete tower succeeded only in raining large chunks of concrete down on the remainder of the buildings. The salvagers sold all of the doors off the buildings, removed the asbestos covering from around the above-ground pipes, and sold the copper.

"They basically just went in and took anything of value," said Cam Ship, Valley County sanitarian.

"They tore out the sinks and the toilets," Pratt added. "What a mess!" After 5 years, no taxes had been paid on the property, and the owner was ready to let it go back to the county.

"We would not accept it," Pratt said. "We had no way of knowing what the liability to the county would be."

Even now, Divide County Commissioners are trying to figure out how to undo their acceptance of 33 acres of the Fortuna base, which Thiem Drilling of Williston forfeited late last year. The County has hired the state`s preeminent environmental lawyer, Bill Delmore of Bismarck, to take a look at the case. Delmore is the same attorney engaged by Hawkeye Township last year to thwart the plans of a pig feeding operation to build there.

"It makes me sick to drive by Fortuna now and see all that relocatable housing," Granrud said. Though many of the homes on Fortuna`s north side were sold and moved, what remains is a collection of half torn down buildings no one can use.Thiem Drilling`s Arvid Barstad forfeited the property over a dispute on its valuation, and retains ownership of the east half of the base. Last winter the county asked the state health department to investigate concerns of potential environmental hazards at the base, but found nothing but a few boxes of waste that needed disposing.

Pratt`s crusade

In 1989, Pratt was the first female ever elected commissioner Valley County. Not long after taking office she was advised of the situation at Opheim. There were concerns of environmental contamination. Though the government waged a clean-up of underground fuel tanks and asbestos abatement at Fortuna prior to its sale in 1996, no such clean-up had taken place at Opheim.

After the private owners abandoned the property, and the county refused to take it back, vandals descended. Teenagers staged drinking parties there, and wildlife invaded the shells of buildings. There were uncovered wells Pratt feared could swallow adventurous children. There was even concern that people were illegally dumping outside waste at the site because it was already believed to be contaminated.

"I took that project on as mine and wouldn`t let go -- kind of like a junk yard dog," she laughs, but it was actually the good rapport established with an Environmental Protection Agency staffer in Denver that finally won her the clean-up, rather than any threats or muscle.

Before what Pratt calls a "stroke of luck," Valley County`s requests for government help had been passed from agency to agency for years. Finally, at the end of a budget year, a small surplus and the need for a small-by-government-standards project, brought a call Pratt could hardly believe from the EPA staffer she had long courted.

"If it hadn`t been for that sympathetic guy, it still never would have been cleaned up," she said.

What he proposed was a joint operation with the county, using much of their equipment, and a waiving of landfill fees for storing the remains. The EPA certified the waste as safe, having never found any serious environmental problems on site. When the local landfill couldn`t accept the rubble, a special permit from the State of Montana was obtained. The waiver gave the county permission to dig a pit on site, for disposal of the rubble that was left of the once-proud Air Force installation.

The clean up was completed in Dec. 2000.

Lessons for Divide

Pratt believes Divide County can accomplish the same sort of clean-up, even if the federal government refuses help, and she believes refusal is likely given the fact the County now owns a portion of the base.

"It`s not a Love Canal, it`s not bothering anyone," Pratt remembers hearing from government agencies, "it can wait."

"Now, I would think it would be more difficult," she said for Divide County to go back to the government, but the fact that the government required no assurances about the maintenance of the Fortuna site leaves some hope they will take responsibility.

If the federal government won`t come through, Pratt suggests Divide County Commissioners look to the State of North Dakota for help.

"Ask them if they would give them a waiver not to have to haul it anywhere," she said. "Maybe the county`s road department can dig a hole." Given the costs of litigation, it could be the cheapest solution to what is potentially a huge headache for the county. Not only have they assumed the liability for any potential hazardous waste the government left behind, they now have the liability of owning a falling down property where someone could be injured.

"My suggestion is, you never give up," said Pratt.

In Valley County, that attitude erased a whole radar base.