Build a wall? Heck, southern Black Hills folks don’t even want to build a fence:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is installing barbed-wire fence to close off part of a defunct military depot near Edgemont, but some area residents say the move will prove ineffective at stopping potential danger from lingering explosives and toxic contamination at the remote site.
…Cindy Brunson, whose ranch includes parts of the depot, knows the spot in her fence where scrappers broke in several years ago to steal metal. In the fall, she came across a trespasser who wanted to see the old buildings, which still dot the site decades after the depot’s closure in 1967.
The plan is a “waste of taxpayer’s money,” said Brunson, who lives at a former school in a neighborhood of abandoned wood buildings and chimneys standing in empty lots [James Nord, “Plans for Old Black Hills Depot Worries Some Residents,” AP via Washington Times, 2016.06.25].
All folks are looking for around Igloo is some scrap metal or cool pictures, and they could get poisoned or blown up in the process. If barbed wire won’t keep those relatively casual visitors out of a hazardous old military site, who thinks a magic wall will keep out workers motivated by the prospect of jobs in the Land of Opportunity to feed their families?
Bonus Nutbars: Of course, enlightened Americans know that the Igloo site, which housed Italian POWs during World War II, is really a FEMA camp. Ah, maybe that’s why Gordon Howie can’t win elections—the government has his supporters behind barbed wire in Igloo….
Is Cindy Brunson a celebrity? I have heard that name before-maybe on Sioux Falls tv, perhaps?
Not the Cindy Brunson I knew from down there.
Of course this is a huge place, and I’m not sure where they are getting in and collecting scrap metal, but it’s obvious what the Corps did or didn’t do to clean up the place and keep parts of it off limits may not be working.
The Army Corps of Engineers studied the place, and cleaned up some parts of it back in the 1990s. I was on the Restoration Advisory Board for a couple years. The Corps dragged its collective feet on actual clean up, though. They did all sorts of monitoring and studies, and supposedly found no explosives/devises that would actually go off. They found some elevated ground water parameters, but didn’t think they were dangerous. They collected some surface debris, and dug out some larger pieces of metal, etc., but otherwise assumed it would be OK to leave what was there provided there was no disruption of the surface. Clearly, as I warned at the time, their efforts were not going to be adequate. A bigger fence can’t substitute for really cleaning up the place, but that would cost more than the fence, I reckon.
Right you are, Donald Pay. The one I was thinking of was a former sports anchor for ESPN.
The article says Burning Ground #2 is where they are going. If I remember right that was the place Chem-Nuclear wanted to site their low-level radioactive waste dump. Pretty dumb to be digging around in there.
This might be a good location for The Borehole.
Give up the borehole, Grudz. There are undoubtedly untold numbers of radical Chinese jihadists just below the surface waiting to invade South Dakota.
Grudz, I hope, I really do, that the Department of Energy tries the Igloo site, but even I don’t think they are dumb enough to fall for that one. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already found that site unsuitable.
Nowhere is unsuitable #4Science, Mr. Pay.
And science is why they won’t be going to Igloo.
Edgemont doesn’t have the bedrock DOE is looking for:
Ah, so that explains all the vehicles/activity I saw at the fort when I drove by there a couple weeks ago. While passing I made a note to myself, to put a visit to that place on my list of clandestine things I want to do with the rest of my life – some day. I sympathize with the curious.
Seems like running herds of cows or bison across every square foot of the area would not cost millions of dollars. Drone heavy vehicles could follow up. It appears government bureaucrats have come up with the most incredibly expensive worthless options possible.