The Navy’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) section issued a fact sheet on the Radiological Assessment of activities in the Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS) inland area that is being returned to the public.
About 750 of these flyers were mailed out throughout the area and is available at the Concord Library. As reported in this blog previously the U.S. Navy confirmed that on the CNWS, 48 sites including 35 bunkers were used to store ‘Special Weapons’ that were “impacted” by activity and that these specific sites will all be investigated further using sophisticated detection techniques. However the conclusions are so far: “the potential for residual radioactive contamination is unlikely. The Navy anticipates that future investigations will find either no or low levels of residual radioactive contamination.”
As an aside, one of the least publicly known aspects of the radiological activity at the site was the building and testing of specialized X-Ray machines to insure the highest quality of manufacture and function of atomic weapons. Concord’s manufacture of these devices were sent far beyond its local borders and contributed to the overall success of the Cold War effort.
We can all joke about the future building of “Geiger Ville” at CNWS and cost cutting on any future Willow Pass Road extension for overhead lights, yet, for a portion of our community, the radiological activity is indeed super scary beyond the range of the usual Halloween frights. We can take comfort that all indications so far are that there are not only no problems, but it does not appear that there will be anything in the investigations that so far that would lead to cause for abnormal worry.
One of the major interfaces between the BRAC and the community is the Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) that receives these reports and comments on them directly. As a board member I was pleased to pass the information to the community as part of the function of the RAB and will provide updates on any changes.