Ravenna Arsenal Information
• The Ravenna Arsenal was built shortly before the
United States entered WWII in order to manufacture ammunition,
test artillery, and store equipment during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
• The arsenal is located at the edge of Portage County, between
Ravenna and Warren, and spans 21,419 acres.
• Today the arsenal comprises 184 abandoned buildings and an air strip.
• In 1998, 95 percent of the area was transferred to the Ohio National
Guard for training. The Army plans to turn the remainder of the complex over
to the National Guard but cannot do so until the buildings are razed.
• 121 of the 184 buildings are coated with lead-based paint and
contaminated with explosive residue. Sixty-four of the buildings
have high levels of PCBs.
• PCBs are polychorinated biphenyl and are a collection of synthetic
organic mixtures; PCBs are flame resistant, chemically stable, used
for electric insulation. PCBs were used heavily from 1940-1970s
to make industrial-grade paint more durable and longer-lasting.
• Exposure to PCBs can cause cancer, liver damage, skin irritation,
and reproductive and developmental problems.
• In 1976, Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA),
which prohibited the production of PCBs.
• The Army wants to burn the buildings; however, burning
PCBs releases dioxins and furans (human carcinogens)
into the air and water. The Army maintains that the burning
will not create a public health threat; nothing
can be done without the full approval of the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) which could take months.
• Many community members are alarmed by the potential hazards
involved in burning PCBs, and are circulating a grass-roots
petition to stop the burn from happening.
-- Compiled by Brad Davis
By Doug Antibus
One of the more recent environmental issues to hit
home in Summit county has been the proposed burning of several buildings on the 21,000 acre U.S. Army
arsenal complex near Ravenna. Constructed in 1940, these buildings were used for munitions production
until the 1970s. At the peak of production during World War II, the Ravenna Arsenal employed 15,000 people
working to make ordinances and ship them overseas. The primary reason for concern is the presence of PCBs in paint
on the building marked for destruction. The presence of explosive residues in the walls of the buildings makes taking
them down with conventional measures dangerous, and so burning has been proposed as an alternative. Polychlorinated
biphenyls were seen as a class of wonder-chemicals when they were first synthesized, but their toxicity and their
tendency to persist and accumulate in the tissues of living organisms led to a halt of their production in the
United States in 1977. They are known to have toxic effects on the nervous, immune, and reproductive systems of
human beings, and are probable carcinogens. Burning would release these harmful chemicals into the environment or
convert them into other toxins (dioxins or furans) which would also be released. PCBs are most dangerous when
they accumulate in ecosystems, as they have in Lake Erie, where the Ohio EPA has issued fish consumption
advisories of one meal per month for many species based on PCB contamination. Less is known about the
likely fate of these chemicals if they are released at the arsenal. One can only hope for the best result –
that the Ohio EPA, U.S. EPA, U.S. Army, and citizens involved in the process are able to work together to find
a solution which represents the interests of all parties by ensuring that the amount of toxic chemicals entering
the environment is limited as much as possible. But whatever course of action takes place at this site will
undoubtedly be time-consuming and
expensive. In the sense that the facilities in question have been unused and inaccessible for nearly three
decades, it has already been so.
Photo by Elizabeth Hunsberger
At the same time, other areas throughout the United States are
burdened with their own environmental problems from decades past. The Badger ammunition plant, near
Baraboo, Wisc., began operations in 1942 and produced propellants for cannons and small-caliber
arms over a period of three decades. Groundwater contamination, in the form of carbon tetrachloride
and sulfates, was discovered in wells outside of the base in 1990. Like the Ravenna arsenal, buildings
at this facility are covered with paint containing PCBs. A proposal to burn them was debated in 2004,
and remains unresolved. As of now, the Army has no solution for this type of problem. EPA standards
prohibit burning any material containing in excess of 50 parts per million of PCB's, while
concentrations as high as 20,000 or 30,000 parts per million have been found in paint at these
sites. The Army could obtain an exemption to the law in order to carry out the burnings, but this
would create the environmental effects discussed above.
Dozens of additional Army and Navy sites throughout the United States have been listed on the EPA's National
Priorities List (NPL) for other reasons. This document, according to the EPA, lists "national
priorities among the known releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants,
or contaminants throughout the United States and its territories."
If nothing else, cases such as these should instruct us that we must
be as observant as possible not to engage in practices which will create similar problems in the
future. Although persistent, they are by far not the greatest cases of long-term damage to
the environment and human health. One might argue that the contamination of sites in Wisconsin,
Ohio, and across the nation is a result of the necessary production of weapons which were used to
fight the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. But I think it is more appropriate
to view warfare and environmental destruction as two facets of a common problem. They both
represent a failure of our political and diplomatic systems to address difficult issues with
wisdom and clarity -- I mean humanity as a whole, of course, not any one nation. But the
conception of a single human community appears to growing rarer.
The environmental decisions we make now will have their
own effects decades into the future. This year, Congress may find drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge as part of the budget which it must vote on. What will our representatives
decide is more important: a small amount of oil, or an intact ecosystem? According to a number of
sources, $2.4 billion which will be collected from leasing land for drilling in the Refuge – and would go
to the Department of the Interior – has also been included in the federal budget by the Bush administration.
But, if this area is developed for oil, what will become of it when it stops producing? Would it be restored
to a natural state, and who would pay to do it?
Environmental protection, when it is successful,
should be viewed as one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity. It means
that people and their political systems have realized the importance of something
which is collective to all people as being greater than self-interest or short-term gain,
and have had the willpower and creativity to act on that realization.
drawing by Brad Davis
"Crowd questions arsenal burn plan," Mike Sever. Daily Record-Courier, Jan. 20 2005.
Information on federal facilities on the NPL: http://www.epa.gov/
fedfac/ff/index.htm.
Information on effects of PCBs:
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/pcb/effects.html.
Wisconsin's Badger Army Ammunition Plant: http://badgeraap.org/about.htm.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2004/2004-03-23-04.asp.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: http://yahoo.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7778491.