Study faults soil at Camden County, N.C., OLF site

A study released Thursday shows what Camden farmers have said all along - that unstable peat and muck soils run deep through the Hales Lake area where the Navy proposes building an outlying landing field.

Soils there, once part of the Great Dismal Swamp, were logged, drained and converted to farm land in the 1960s and '70s, according to the study by the Cary engineering firm of Withers & Ravenel.

Peat on the surface and muck soils just below average a thickness of about 5 feet and are unsuitable for septic systems and unstable as a construction base, the study said. The Navy would have to excavate and fill up to 2.6 million cubic yards of soil at a cost that could exceed $14 million, it said.

"The muck has done nothing for a thousand years except support the peat, and that is very light," said Camden County Attorney John Morrison.

Runway construction could require up to 70,830 cubic yards of concrete and more than 100,000 tons of rock, the study said. The nearest rock quarry is 104 miles from Hales Lake and would require more than 5,000 trips by heavy trucks, it said.

Sites in Virginia that are on the list of possibilities for an OLF all have predominantly loamy soils, the study said. Soil samples from a Gates County site the Navy is also looking at were not included.

Recent peat soil fires in the area burned underground for weeks, sending smoke plumes across major highways and into populated areas such as Hampton Roads and the Outer Banks. The study cautioned that jet activity or a crash could cause a fire.

"That could have devastating effects," Morrison said.

Thousands of migratory geese and swans feed and winter in the area.

Camden and Currituck counties hired the engineering firm earlier this year to study conditions around the site independent of the Navy's environmental impact statement.

"We would appreciate information from any and all sources at all five of the OLF sites," said Ted Brown, Navy spokesman.

Hales Lake, one of five sites where the Navy proposes building a jet practice field, was once part of the Great Dismal Swamp. Soybean fields stretch for miles, uninterrupted except for large drainage ditches. Without drainage, the fields could not be farmed.

Peat soils are also common in Chesapeake, but Fentress airfield lies on more solid mineral soils, said Carl Peacock, soil scientist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"There are no organic soils within a thousand feet of the runway," Peacock said.

Withers & Ravenel took deep soil samples in the Hales Lake area in August. Farmers have said tractors even bog down in the mud there after wet weather.

Blackwater Worldwide operates a runway within a few miles of the Hales Lake site. State and local governments did not monitor soil excavation there, and Blackwater would not release construction details.

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com