In 2017, The Columbian wrote editorially: “Clark County’s Camp Bonneville Military Reservation site has the potential to be a gem for local residents. So, as cleanup efforts continue at the former military training facility, the goal must be to prepare the area for safe and extensive public use.”
Seven years later, the sentiment still applies, although the task remains daunting. The 3,840-acre site in east Clark County was used for live-fire exercises to train soldiers from 1909-95. That left behind an untold amount of lead contamination and a staggering number of unexploded munitions.
But with Clark County officials reporting that much of the cleanup has been completed, the focus must be on preparing the site for public use.
“Camp Bonneville is clean of ordnance, except the 500-acre central impact area that will always be closed,” county council Chair Gary Medvigy said this week. “The former dump is the only area being monitored.”
Kevin Tyler, manager for the county’s Parks and Lands division, said that only the groundwater at Camp Bonneville is still in the cleanup process.
Continuing and eventually completing the work will require consistent monitoring. A report from the state auditor’s office, released in August, found that the ecology department and Clark County had failed to meet state requirements to conduct five-year reviews on cleanup efforts.
And as Gregory Shaw, a former member of a now-disbanded advisory group, told The Columbian: “If you’re going to transition it from a restricted area into an open area, an area that the public might have access to, you have to make sure that the cleanup that you did was both effective at the time and has remained effective over time.” With snow and rainfall in the region, long-buried munitions may ascend to the surface.
As that work continues, consideration of the area’s future must begin.
In the past, Medvigy has suggested that the site could be used to provide housing for veterans. And The Columbian has written: “While a portion of Camp Bonneville will never be usable, the remainder offers much promise for Clark County residents. The hilly, heavily wooded site about 5 miles northeast of Vancouver includes a bucolic valley bisected by Lacamas Creek that could become a haven within easy reach of populated areas.”
Whether that is possible remains to be seen. There still are questions about whether large portions of Camp Bonneville ever will be accessible, particularly if surrounding plots remain dangerous due to the risk of unexploded munitions or lingering contamination, particularly in the soil.
Shaw warned: “There’s no possibility that the county will ever have the resources to fence areas off adequately because of the hodgepodge of areas that are cleaned up. There is no core area which is easily defined as usable because it’s been properly cleared.”
Overall, the work reflects the nation’s laborious efforts to clean up the messes of the past. Taxpayers spend billions of dollars each year rectifying the damage caused from a time when our society gave little thought to environmental concerns.
When performed diligently, that work can be beneficial to the public. Ideally, residents of Clark County will someday enjoy those benefits at Camp Bonneville, adding it to the region’s opportunities for outdoor recreation.
As the Editorial Board also has written in the past: “A jewel of a property such as Camp Bonneville is an opportunity that Clark County must polish.”
