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Camp Minden water safety topic of meeting

by Minden Press-Herald

DOYLINE — A follow up meeting, to be hosted by the Army National Guard, with regards to water safety around Camp Minden is set for Thursday.

Set for 6:30 p.m., at the Family Life Center at First Baptist Church in Doyline, the meeting will serve a three-fold purpose: to acquire additional locations of shallow wells near Camp Minden, owned by community members who will allow testing for toxic chemical presence; to summarize progress so far in the plan to test approximately 22 wells in and around Camp Minden – primarily for energetics released by the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant into the ground; and to share the plan and schedule moving forward.

The meeting is a follow up on the results from the public meeting arranged in 2015 by the Environmental Protection Agency during which the ARNG gave a lengthy summary of more than 20 years of Superfund cleanup operations for the LAAP pollution.

“It is a water safety issue, while separate from the M6 propellant disposal process, was a method through which the Camp Minden Citizens Advisory Group board hoped to get some baseline data of water prior to the M6 destruction start-up,” Ron Hagar, CAG chair, said. “Since the process has moved too slow to accomplish that goal, the CMCAG is currently using this avenue solely to verify safety of the privately-owned local drinking or husbandry wells around Camp Minden. Fortunately, Explosive Service International testing of shallow wells around the operating area gave us some baseline data for water.”

When the CAG notified the ARNG that many concerns were not fully covered by the EPA sponsored meeting, ARNG volunteered to test up to 22 wells of the CAG’s choosing for water safety.

“This Thursday’s meeting was requested by the ARNG as a final effort to attain as many private wells to test as possible,” Hagar said.

First Baptist Church in Doyline is located at 619 College Street.

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