Explosives Left Behind Delay Military Base Conversions : Weapons: At least five California facilities are plagued with unexploded munitions resulting from decades of target practice. Transfer of the properties to public use could be stymied for years.

Widespread contamination of military bases with unexploded hand grenades, land mines and other munitions is delaying conversion of bases to civilian use and could cost taxpayers billions of dollars to clean up, government officials said Monday.

Unexploded ordnance, left over from decades of military target practice, poses such a safety threat that large tracts of land transferred to public use will remain closed off for years, experts testified at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee in Seaside.

At least five California bases slated for closure are plagued with unexploded munitions, including nearby Ft. Ord, where at least 8,000 acres of coastal land will have to be set aside indefinitely.

“This is an issue that’s been kept very quiet because it’s been in the military’s hands,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), committee chairman. “All of a sudden, we have a major contamination problem on our hands.”

At least 600 military bases nationwide are strewn with unexploded ordnance, said Lewis D. Walker, a deputy assistant secretary of defense. For bases that are being closed, the problem of removing live munitions looms as large and as costly as cleaning up toxic contamination, he said.

“We can’t hide from the fact that many of these projectiles have our markings on them,” Walker said. “We can’t hide from our responsibility.”

Since World War II, the armed forces have trained soldiers and tested weapons by firing vast quantities of ammunition onto target ranges.

Not all of the ordnance exploded. On impact, some shells became lodged many feet deep, then began slowly working their way to the surface as a result of soil erosion or vibration.

When the military transfers a site to the public, it sweeps the surface to remove unexploded ordnance. But years later, live ammunition can appear and pose a danger.

In 1983, two 8-year-old San Diego boys were killed when they discovered a live shell in a canyon near their suburban housing tract, the site of a former military base. It exploded when one of the boys banged it on a rock.

“Millions of acres are contaminated with ordnance, including munitions from pistols, rifles and artillery, as well as bombs from naval, aerial and ground bombardment,” Miller said. “The potential use of these lands is clearly limited if unexploded ordnance remains.”

The Pentagon has no solid estimate of how much land on the bases marked for closure is contaminated with unexploded ordnance, Walker said. But of the 22 California bases to be shut down, the most serious problem is at Ft. Ord, near the site of the committee hearing.

David Wang of the California Environmental Protection Agency testified that it would cost $800 million to remove live ammunition up to 10 feet deep just at Ft. Ord. Even then, he said, the base’s 8,000-acre target range would not be completely clean because some ordnance would remain embedded as deep as 20 feet.

An Army training base since World War I, Ft. Ord will be closed in October. Part of the 28,000-acre base will be turned over to the California State University system for a new campus that will open in fall, 1995. Army officials insist that live munitions will not pose a threat to students because the campus will not be located on any part of the target range.

The target range will be permanently set aside as part of a wildlife habitat to be administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The Army plans to clean unexploded ordnance from the site over a 10-year period, working slowly to minimize disturbances to such endangered species as Smith’s butterfly and the legless lizard that managed to survive years of bombardment, said Col. Tom Ellzey, base commander.

Other California bases scheduled to be closed that are contaminated with unexploded ordnance include Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, Sacramento Army Depot, Treasure Island Naval Station and the Presidio in San Francisco, officials said.

The main problem in dealing with the munitions is that the technology for locating ordnance is very primitive. Despite the use of radar, sonar and surveillance air, no cheap and reliable method has been developed for locating live shells.

Also, newly developed weapons programmed to explode when they sense certain sound frequencies or the presence of metal can be especially difficult to disarm.

Officials said some former target ranges may be kept off limits for decades until the technology is developed to locate and destroy live munitions cheaply.

More than 10 million acres of onetime target ranges transferred to the Department of the Interior are potentially contaminated with unexploded ordnance, testified David Nawi, the department’s solicitor for the Pacific Southwest region.

Most of these lands are very remote and the cost of cleanup--sometimes more than $100,000 an acre--is more than the land is worth, he said. To prevent injuries or fatalities, the department restricts access or provides no services in areas where munitions may surface.

This includes property administered by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Unexploded bombs, which have a tendency to skip when they hit the ground and travel considerable distances, are also scattered on Native American lands near bombing ranges.

Miller said the problem of unexploded ordnance has become greater in California with increasing demand for land. “Our changing defense needs lend greater urgency to our search for successful ordnance cleanup technologies,” he said.