U.S. Army demolishing Orion Park U.S. Army demolishing Orion Park (January 13, 2006)

Contaminated housing site to be replaced by training center

By Jon Wiener

Army officials are planning to knock down 469 homes just outside the Moffett Field main gate to make way for a new $70 million West Coast reserve training facility.

The Army announced the decision in a Jan. 6 press release, in which it detailed plans to create 540 new positions at the center. Army Reserve Public Affairs Officers Don Sundius said the military will give the 147 civilian families in Orion Park 60 days to find new places to live, The few dozen military families in Orion Park will move to housing elsewhere on the base.

"This was built as short-term housing and now we're talking 50 years later," said Sundius. "The intention was never to have it available for civilian families, whether they be government families or not."

Sundius said the eviction notices will go out by the end of the month.

Once envisioned as the site of an Olympic Village, Orion Park has in recent years been plagued by health concerns resulting from a large amount of toxic solvent found in groundwater under the homes there. Limited sampling efforts suggested that the vapors from the polluted groundwater were seeping into homes, but federal officials were unable to reach a solution.

"The concern was for the potential long-term health risks," said Alana Lee, project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency, which is struggling to identify the party responsible for the pollution.

Lee said that a training center built with newer construction methods will be significantly safer than the dilapidated housing units it is replacing.

The new center -- which will combine three similar facilities in Los Alamitos, Seattle, and Salt Lake City -- will include 540 positions, nearly double the number of Department of Defense employees at Moffett now. Most of those jobs will be filled by civilians.

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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