Camp Bonneville Breakdown
One year ago, Friends of Clark County published a newsletter article detailing community concerns surrounding the cleanup process of Camp Bonneville, a 3,840-acre County-owned property located in the foothills of the Cascade Range about 7 miles north of the Columbia River in East County that was used as a military training camp for 85 years. It was formerly owned by the US Army and was later conveyed to the County for the purposes of natural resource conservation through the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.
Sometime after Clark County acquired this conservation conveyance in 2006, it was determined that the cleanup was going to be much more extensive and costly than initially thought, so in 2011 Clark County accepted ownership of the cleanup under the condition that the Army provide funding for it. You can read more background on Camp Bonneville and community concerns regarding the cleanup in our previous article titled Camp Bonneville: Safety, Transparency, and Accessible Parks.
A lot has happened since that first article, with the community (and FOCC at times) weighing in with serious concerns regarding Camp Bonneville’s management. While the County has made some big changes in recent months to improve management, many concerns remain.
Ongoing Law Enforcement Activities at Camp Bonneville
There have been a lot of questions surrounding the fact that many law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Clark County Sheriff’s Office, Metro Explosives Disposal Unit (MEDU), SWAT, ATF, and hundreds of others have been allowed to operate at Camp Bonneville over the years. Concerns range from whether the Deed and conveyance restrictions allow for such activities, whether continued law enforcement presence is delaying the County’s goals of cleaning Camp Bonneville up so it can meet the criteria of its current categorization as a Regional Natural Area in the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space (PROS) Plan and the County’s future plans for a public park, whether those law enforcement activities are continuing to contaminate Camp Bonneville and threaten the surrounding community by increasing the risk of wildfire, why they have been allowed to continue operations with expired agreements, and whether it is safe for people to be on the property while its cleanup status has not been fully determined.
Last year, the County stated that these agencies were using only the allowed firing range area that was permitted for FBI, CCSO, and their guests for the purposes of firing handguns and shotguns. This conflicted with what the neighbors near Camp Bonneville had reported and the extensive documentation provided to the County from community members.
Highly concerning image of open gate to the most dangerous portion of Camp Bonneville observed during PBS site visit
The Washington Department of Ecology Steps In, County Concedes Uses Have Expanded
Much more detail has now emerged on this front. The Washington Department of Ecology, who is charged with overseeing the cleanup process, recently asked law enforcement to fill out questionnaires regarding their activities at Camp Bonneville. In addition, the community has provided public records of several email communications between CCSO and County staff. Altogether, this documentation demonstrates that:
- the FBI has not been adhering to the terms of its contract that it had promised to abide by while a new contract has been being negotiated for 2 years;
- other agencies have been operating on the property with no use agreements for some time;
- chemical agents (such as teargas and HC) have been deployed;
- explosives are being stored on the property; and
- up to quarter pound charges of explosives have been detonated in an unknown area on the property outside of the firing range for many years.
It should be noted that recent staff reports on Camp Bonneville conflict with the available evidence.
These revelations call into question the integrity of the entire cleanup process thus far and heighten concerns about wildfire risks as well as groundwater contamination, as perchlorate and RDX, chemical components of explosives, persist in the groundwater at Camp Bonneville today in an area very close to the headwaters of Lacamas Lake.
Law Enforcement Training Facility or Regional Natural Area?
There are other concerns as well. Currently, Camp Bonneville is categorized as a Regional Natural Area in the Clark County Parks, Recreation, and Open Space (PROS) Plan, and its entire 3,840 acres has been counted towards the County’s level of service for parks, despite its current status of not being open to the public, the cleanup being unfinished, 500 acres of it being closed off forever due to extensive UXO contamination, and it being currently used as a law enforcement training facility. Regional Natural Areas are defined as being managed for their natural and ecological value, often allow light impact recreational use, and are to provide relief from urban density. For these reasons as well as recent revelations from the County’s overdue Periodic Review of the cleanup of Camp Bonneville, FOCC’s position is that it is not accurate to include Camp Bonneville as a Regional Natural Area in the PROS Plan at this time and that the County should work toward meaningfully addressing its parks deficit.
Furthermore, Camp Bonneville was transferred as a conservation conveyance. The US Code for this type of conveyance limits restrictions to “incidental revenue-producing activities on the property that are compatible with the use of the property for conservation purposes”. While it should be acknowledged that various process documents do mention potential reuse of a shooting range after the cleanup is finished, exemptions for law enforcement activities are not mentioned in the Quitclaim Deed or the Memorandum of Understanding for Camp Bonneville, with the deed mentioning that only those involved in the cleanup should have access to the property for safety reasons. To summarize, “reuses” are for when the property is ready to be reused, not during the cleanup process. What we also know is that the deployment of chemical agents, use of explosives, and storage of explosives were never contemplated during the BRAC process. The County has never answered the questions posed about how these extreme uses are incidental, revenue-producing (the FBI and other agencies have never paid rent for use of Camp Bonneville), or compatible with the conservation of natural resources.
Now, the Clark County Council will be charged with deciding if this activity will be allowed to continue. FOCC strongly supports the County ending all law enforcement activities going forward and finding an appropriate place for the agency it is responsible for, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, to perform its needed firearms training. Our reasoning is that evidence suggests that these various law enforcement agencies have not been good tenants, we are concerned about the apparent conflict with use restrictions, we are worried that these activities will continue to contaminate the property, and we believe that the community has legitimate concerns regarding wildfire (especially in light of climate change) and groundwater contamination, as well as lack of public engagement. We understand that CCSO feels it needs to use Camp Bonneville right now, but officer safety is also a serious concern in light of the recent Periodic Review of Camp Bonneville.
You can read questions and comments submitted by FOCC to Clark County regarding their upcoming decision on approving continued law enforcement presence at Camp Bonneville here: https://friendsofclarkcounty.org/camp-bonneville-read-foccs-questions-and-comments-for-clark-county-ahead-of-critical-council-decision/
Leaking contaminated sewage lagoon from Camp Bonneville PBS Period Review
Cleanup, Compliance, and New Revelations from the Periodic Review
Recently, the Director of Public Works shared that the Parks Department had been rearranged to accommodate the management needs of Camp Bonneville. Camp Bonneville is now in the Lands division along with another familiar County property: the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad. The County has also been seeking a Compliance Manager for some time to ensure compliance regarding cleanup activities that are overseen by the Washington Department of Ecology, and a new candidate has been selected whose name will be announced by the County soon.
In September, both Ecology and Clark County were found to have not complied with requirements to conduct five-year reviews for remedial actions at Camp Bonneville by the WA state auditor’s office. To come into compliance, Clark County contracted with a company that has a long history with Camp Bonneville called PBS to perform a periodic cleanup review, which was submitted to Ecology in January. The Periodic Review for Camp Bonneville concludes that “additional methods for clearance should be undertaken for certain areas of the proposed park where intensive use will occur, such as campgrounds, picnic areas, recreation areas, and playgrounds.” This is important because this indicates that it is not safe for law enforcement to be using the site, either. Until this review, it was wrongly assumed by many that the cleanup was effectively approaching completion and that law enforcement use of the site was generally safe. Other concerning details from the review were that fencing was down in several locations (although Clark County has indicated they have plans to address this) and the gate to the CITA (the most dangerous area of Camp Bonneville) was open when PBS contractors arrived. Furthermore, PBS also discovered tire tracks on the soil caps covering lead contamination, streambank erosion just 4.5 feet away from those soil caps, and no signage marking the presence of the lead contamination. A contaminated sewage lagoon was also found to be leaking onto the roadways. While this report was submitted in January, discussion of these critical details was notably absent from the recent Camp Bonneville Work Session in February when this information was highly relevant to the decisions Councilors will be making.
The Clark County Council also secured $6 million in more funding from the Army by approving an amendment to the Environmental Services Cooperative Agreement (ESCA) for Camp Bonneville in January. Community members worry that this may have locked in a certain cheaper and less effective remedy for addressing contamination, while the County states that this method was only included in the amendment for a cost estimate and that Ecology will decide the appropriate remediation technique in the near future.
Stream bank erosion just 4.5 feet from failing lead-contaminated and run over soil caps
Public Engagement
Last year, FOCC expressed concerns about the Camp Bonneville Community Advisory Group (CAG) process, which you can review here: https://friendsofclarkcounty.org/transparency-for-the-camp-bonneville-community-advisory-group-cag-position-statement/
Since then, the CAG has been disbanded with conflicting narratives about why it was disbanded. You can listen to the only audio-recorded and final Camp Bonneville CAG meeting here:
FOCC believes that the complexities of the site’s history, the need for an accurate cleanup assessment in the interest of human health and safety in Clark County, the obligations of Clark County outlined in the Public Participation Plan for Camp Bonneville, and the deep knowledge and extensive documentation possessed by former CAG members and other community members calls for a new, longstanding Camp Bonneville CAG to meaningfully address its many needs and community concerns.
Where Are We Now?
Recently, Chair Marshall raised during Councilor Reports that the County had been receiving lots of comments regarding Camp Bonneville. Based on this and other Councilors additional questions, a Work Session was held on Camp Bonneville. Notably, staff and the Council had agreed to come back for Council Time, which allows public comment, but they instead came back for a Work Session, which disallowed public comment.
Ahead of this meeting, FOCC submitted questions and comments we hoped the Council would use to guide their discussion and address community concerns.
During this meeting, staff disclosed that they had halted Bomb Squad activity and that they would no longer be permitting the use of explosives. This conflicts with staff’s January 30th internal memo to the Council. Another noted change to the proposed use agreements was that there were no longer going to be “umbrella” agreements that allowed the FBI and others to invite whoever they want onto the property, which over the years has led to hundreds of agencies (some even foreign) to use the property during its cleanup stages. The contracts being discussed are now single-year contracts, which is notably much less than the prior FBI contract and less than what staff had reported it would be negotiating at the last FBI contract briefing. Staff also outlined a plan for creating a shaded fire break rather than a traditional fire break.
These developments are hopeful regarding community concerns about law enforcement activities on this conservation property, and undoubtedly came about as a result of persistent engagement by those who chose to raise these serious issues, no matter how uncomfortable it may have been to do so. However, FOCC, remains concerned that the history of law enforcement agencies the County has no responsibility to accommodate (agencies other than the Clark County Sheriff’s Office) disregarding the restrictions on their previous contracts, together with the fact that there was no plan laid out for monitoring and enforcement of those contracts (other than gate controls preventing nighttime and weekend usage) will lead to continuation of the status quo at Camp Bonneville that could continue jeopardizing the cleanup and delaying the conservation uses it is meant for. There was also no mention of the dollar amounts being considered for any kind of payment for use and again, the highly concerning Period Review by PBS advising further MEC clearance prior to intensive use calls into question the safety of officers continuing to inappropriately use the site during the cleanup phases.
FOCC’s Final Thoughts
In summary, our position on Camp Bonneville remains the same: the County needs to move forward with its plans for conservation and public access by focusing on the cleanup, not managing a host of law enforcement activities for many more years. Camp Bonneville is a beautiful, wild place that has experienced much abuse in its history, and it was provided to the County with the intent of remediation and the purpose of natural resource conservation.
We must not revert to the past. It is finally time for the County to take the decisive actions necessary to realize the future for Camp Bonneville, starting with the Council declining to move forward with new law enforcement agreements and creating an actionable plan to accommodate the Clark County Sheriff’s Office’s needs at a new, appropriate location such as the upcoming indoor Ridgefield training center.
Please share your thoughts and concerns about Camp Bonneville, especially regarding wildfire as the season comes closer, with the Clark County Council:
https://clark.wa.gov/councilors/write-councilor