On June 7, 1960, there was an explosion in a helium tank on McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey that took out a Nuclear Rocket and its plutonium warhead. The Nuke’s destructive “yield” was 10 kilotons of TNT. By some estimates, seventy-five acres (30 hectares) of land was – and maybe still is – contaminated by highly enriched depleted Uranium waste and/or wastewater.
Surveys conducted shortly after the accident revealed that water used to fight the fire was primarily responsible for distributing the nuclear contaminants. Not all the weapons grade plutonium was accounted for then or since. Storm water run-offs, post accident-activity (such as foot and vehicular traffic) and cross-contamination of materials disposed of on site after the fire was extinguished all amounted to a world-class nuclear remediation problem for decades to come. Forty two and a half acres of NJ real estate was contaminated with weapons grade plutonium. – up to seventy-five acres in total may have been impacted. The BOMARC Final Remediation Report for “Site RW-01” (the 1960 accident) was written in May, 2010 and is a fascinating read.
What’s a BOMARC? BOMARC is an acronym for “Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center” weapon system CIM-10 / IM-99. It was a supersonic, ramjet powered, surface-to-air-missile (SAM) that was used primarily by the Air Force for air defense of North America. It was the first operational long-range SAM and the first to use an operational pulse doppler aviation radar. It entered service in 1959.
The missile was stored horizontally on a steel erecting arm, which, once activated, was raised vertically and fired using rocket boosters to achieve high altitude. Once the BOMARC lofted high enough, it was capable of horizontal Mach 2.5 cruise speed using its ramjet engines. Its maximum range was 430 miles (700 Km) and was commanded from a ground-based control center. When BOMARC reached its target area, an active radar homing guidance system took over, ultimately culminating with a proximity fuse detonating the warhead. What was that warhead, you ask? The BOMARC design called for a “conventional” explosive or a nuclear “W40”. All of the BOMARCs at McGuire were nuclear “W40” equipped.
A W40 warhead was a “fusion-boosted” nuclear warhead that had a design yield of ten (10) kilotons. “Little Boy”, the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945, had a yield of 15 kilotons. It is estimated (because the information is still classified) that McGuire had about 56 BOMARC missiles before they were eventually “decommissioned” between 1969 and 1976.
When the New Jersey BOMARC nuclear accident happened, McGuire was home to about 56 ten kiloton nuclear devices. Add to that the NIKE Missile bases near Earle Naval Base (Monmouth County), Watchung Reservation, Roseland / Livingston Border, the NJ “Highlands” – and a few more locations – New Jersey was (and probably still is) bristling with Nukes.
All the NJ NIKE Missle locations were Army staffed and Nuclear. The NJ NIKE bases were decommissioned around 1969. The advent of Intercontinental Ballistic Missles rendered BOMARC and NIKE installations obsolete. New Jersey still warehouses nuclear ordinance; Earle is the only location the military openly admits has nukes, although people in the know say McGuire still keeps a few nuclear tricks up its sleeve.
McGuire Air Force Base actually touches the Northernmost crest of what is generally considered “The Pines”. The NJ Pine Barrens is 1,700 square miles of “Preserve” that sits on top of the 17 trillion gallon (64-billion-cubic-metre) Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer containing some of the purest fresh water in the United States. This water is recognized as a National Treasure – a drinking water “bank account” for the future.
The NJ Pine Barrens is actually designated an “International Biosphere Reserve” by the United Nations. No other state in the United States has a potable fresh-water aquifer as big as the Kirkwood-Cohansey.
Returning to the BOMARC accident of 1960, we can quickly see what the big snafu was. They fought the fire with water. That water bubbled and washed its way down the property, across Ocean County Highway 539 and accumulated in a cement drainage culvert. Then all that water – fifteen hours worth of uninterrupted, full-bore, pressurized H2O contaminated with weapons grade plutonium – percolated down into the water table….our aquifer. Where people get their water from.
On November 20, 1992 Earth Technology Corp. of Alexandria, Virginia – a US Air Force “Contractor” tasked with evaluating remedial activity on the NJ BOMARC accident site issued their report AD-A-261304/0/XAB, CNN: F33615-90-D-4007. This document presented the “Final Remedial Action” blueprint for the radioactive wastes remaining at the decommissioned BOMARC Missle Site, McGuire Air Force Base in NJ. It states that: “…The BOMARC Missle Site became contaminated in 1960 as the result of a fire which partially consumed a nuclear warhead-equipped BOMARC missile”.
(emphasis provided)
The Report further related that the Air Force “decided” to pursue excavation and off-site disposal of the contaminated waste at a Department of Energy (DOE) disposal facility. It decribes this decision as a “cost-effective, permament remedy” that is “environmentally preferred”. It cautioned, however, that should the Air Force be denied the use of such a DOE waste disposal facility, they would have no alternative but to “maintain” the BOMARC Missile Site “in accordance with the NEPA No Action Alternative”.
Since the BOMARC Missile Site accident in 1960, up through its “decommissioning” sometime around 1969/1979 (actual date is “classified”), this radioactive abomination had been sitting there, bubbling and festering in all it’s contaminated nuclear glory. Oozing Weapons-Grade-Plutonium residue into the soil. That’s decades of hurricanes, rainstorms, snow storms and precipitation – tons of tainted water leaching and wicking its way down into the very earth that borders our famous Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer.
This 42.5 acre radioactive site was apparently cordoned-off in McGuire Base in 1960 and quaranteened for decades until the AIr Force called in a specialized testing laboratory for site Remedial Evaluations in 1992. Little or interest was shown in the BOMARC Site until the Air Force decided it needed the contaminated real estate to use for something else. The Air Force called it “repurposing”.
The US AIR Force slowly chewed-over their Earth Technology Corp. report (1992) conclusions and finally made up its mind about what to do with the contaminated NJ BOMARC site in 2010, fifty years after the nuclear missile burned up.
The US Air Force Headquarters Air Safety Center (Steven E. Rademacher, YD-03) issued its definitive “Policy Paper” on the “Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center (BOMARC), Final Remedial Action Report for Site RW-01, McGuire AFB, NJ” on May 17, 2010 from Kirkland AFB in Texas. It was “Approved for Public Distribution, Unlimited”.
The 2010 Paper acknowledges that “…..The primary material of concern is weapons grade plutonium (WGP), fissile material from the nuclear warhead…”
The paper goes on to say that they estimated 300 g(rams) of WGP was not recovered from the “initial accident response actions” and that “translocation” of (WGP) contaminants was largely attributed to fire-fighting water and later storm water run-offs…” The Air Force admits (in 2010) that in 1972 this BOMARC site “ceased operational use”, but that a number of radiological investigations to assess the integrity of asphalt and engineering controls resulted in safegards emplaced to reduce exposure risks to personnel accessing the site.
This document further informs us that, “….though the original design amounts of plutonium in the weapon (WGP) remain classified, an estimate of the material remaining on the site after the initial removal was made by the Department of Energy (DOE) and Air Force scientists, an upper limit of 300 grams of WSP” was agreed upon as a “removal target”. A “Risk Based” analysis was established which formed the base-line goal for Air Force Remediation:
“………the risk-based criterion established for unrestricted-release of soils was 8 picocuries / gram (pCi/g) 239PU, as modeled with the Residual Radiation (RESRAD) computer-based risk modeling code developed by Argonne National Laboratory. These concentratons provide for an annual dose of 4 millirem (mrem) to a maximally-exposed individual (MEI) and correspond to a lifetime excess cancer risk of 10 (to the negative 4) (70 year integrated exposure)”.
The Air Force “risk based” criterion, therefore, is established using data assessing how likely a “maximally exposed individual” (MEI) will get cancer over his / her lifetime of 70 years.
Remediation of the primary contaminated areas at the BOMARC 42.5 acre BOMARC site itself was conducted from March 2002 through June 2004 by Duratek Services and Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure (E & I). A “total waste volume” of contaminated debris and soil totaling 21,998 cubic yards (yd3) was removed and transported to Envirocare facilities in Utah.
A quantity of 21,998 cubic yards of dirt, my friend, is substantial. We’re talking train cars loaded with bad dirt as far as the eye can see. All bound for Utah.
“Survey” results taken thereafter from the site showed compliance with all relevent parameters and “risk-based” criterion. However, “concerns regarding contamination in secondary areas” persisted. This had to do with the limited ability of field instruments to detect plutonium contamination “at depth” in soils, the “mechanisms” of translocations of contaminants in other “impacted areas” as well as the “discrete nature of plutonium contaminants” versus its “modeled risks”.
Another contractor, Cabrera Services, was brought in to assess the situation. They specialized in “discrete plutonium particle disbursement versus homogenously disbursed forms”. Cabrera performed “spot removals” of about 65 cubic yards (CY3) of contaminated waste, predominately soil with lesser amounts of floor debris and asphalt and conducted extensive “in-situ” radiation scanning surveys. From Cabrera’s studies the Air Force concluded that contaminants were restricted to surface soils and that contamination at “depth” had been remediated adequately. All that residue eventually wound up in Utah, too.
The May 17, 2010 BOMARC Final Remediation Action Report candidly admitted that “members of the public” were “concerned” about two specific items that the Air force hadn’t previously addressed. The concrete debris from the drainage culvert under Ocean County Highway 539 and the burnt, twisted remains of the BOMARC missile launcher. The Air Force “official” response was remarkable.
The Air Force “Air Safety Center, Weapons Safety Division” (Steven E. Rademacher, YD-03) admitted that they had no idea where this stuff wound up.
The original culvert which was immersed in and served as an emergency containment vessel for significant volumes of Weapons Grade Plutonium-tainted fire-fighting water runoff had been “replaced” after the accident. The Air Force could not say, however, just where all that irradiated concrete debris wound up. They declared that “…..the replacement culvert appears to be in the same location” as the original one, ie. on the same irradiated and Weapons Grade Plutonium water-soaked footprint…..
The Air Force report (Rademacher) states that rebuilding the replacement culvert in the same location as the original tainted one was “….based on surveys that investigated the potential for an alternative water drainage pathway”. The civil engineers on the Air Force payroll designed and built a “new” culvert in the old culvert’s exact – tainted – location. Relocating the culvert might have been prohibitively expensive (there’s a main road involved and it’s New Jersey, after all), but the manner in which this was handled raised the ire of locals.
The Air Force further informs us that “….the disposition of the original culvert is not known, though there is no supporting evidence to suggest it was buried on the BOMARC site or adjacent property on the West side of Ocean County Highway 539 (part of the Fort Dix Reservation)”.
Finally, the “Air Force Safety Center” Report dated May 17, 2010 addresses the mystery of the missing BOMARC Ram Launcher. The BOMARC Missile that burned on June 7, 1960 caught fire while still mounted atop its steel launcher. Remains of this launcher were never found. The Air Force report states: “…disposition of the launcher from the missile involved in the accident is not known. Extensive magnetometry surveys conducted during the RI/FS and restoration activities throughout the 2000’s failed to reveal information on it’s disposition. Thus, an on-site disposal is deemed improbable”. (Emphasis provided by author).
Most of the Air Force servicemen involved in Jersey BOMARC 1960 accident were Korea-era vets – but a few that are still alive in South Jersey take issue with the Air Force’s “Official” pronouncements. One in particular – call him “Charlie” – was explicit.
“It was FUBAR” from the start”, he said – using an Air Force acronym for “Messed Up”.
I quizzed him about the cement culvert debris and the burnt launcher remains. Without hesitation he told me what he saw with his own eyes.
“All that launcher shit was bulldozed into a waste pit and buried, right on-site, not far from BOMARC Shelter 204 where the fire broke out. The cement from the culvert demolition was dumped just over the fence line nearby the construction site off Highway 539. That’s Fort Dix land….We was ordered to do it….”
When I told him about the alleged “extensive magnetometry” the Air Force guys say they did to find the launcher remains but failed find anything, Charlie again laughed out loud.
“Magnetometry, my ass….we was ordered to dump the shit! All of it! Everything! An’ there was even asbestos piles we buried, too. Tons of it….that land is polluted for centuries to come….”
The May 17, 2010 “Final” Air Force Paper authored by Mr. Rademacher, ends with an optimistic declaration that “….No long-term monitoring, or further operations and maintenance is necessary to support the ROD”. ROD is a military acronym for their particular Restoration Protocol assigned to the site. He sums up: “The remedial actions conducted on the site successfully removed residual plutonium to the acceptable levels specified in the ROD and substantiated by the final status surveys”.
In conclusion, a whopper of a nuclear accident happened in New Jersey in 1960 which resulted in the release of Weapons Grade Plutonium in quantity. The accident site abutted the enormous Kirkwood-Cohansey (Pine Barrens) aquifer. Initial efforts by the Air Force to put out the fire that consumed a nuclear weapon ( a BOMARC Missile) caused water, soil and other environmental damage – which damage was neglected for decades and may continue today. Certain specific damage was later “remediated” to the satisfaction of Air Force Command sometime around 2010. Fifty (50) years after the BOMARC Missile caught fire and melted.
The New Jersey DEP says it was all “an Air Force jurisdictional issue.” People I contacted there said: “It was their ball and we let them carry it”.
Copyright 2022, Jon Croft.
