There are so many rumors about the amount of contamination at KSAAP that many people envision it as the next Superfund site.
Here in southeast Kansas, visions of Tar Creek (Treece, Kan., and Pitcher, Okla.) pop into one’s mind where acres and acres lie in waste. Worse though than the lead and zinc of those areas, here people think about TNT and explosives lying about everywhere – and then of course there are the rumors of that semi trailer filled with contamination that is buried in the ground somewhere out there. Of course no one knows where or when that occurred.
The definitive word is in though, and the news is amazingly good. Read more

Day & Zimmermann, Inc., is currently putting together two proposals for continued ammunition-making projects at the Great Plains Industrial Park located between Parsons and Oswego.
The company is bidding on a large contract but officials says it will be some time before the successful bidder is chosen by the Department of Defense.
There are also other contracts open for competitive bidding and D&Z needs to adapt its material production with known demands in munitions.
The U.S. Army left some equipment behind when it decommissioned the KAAP, because D&Z had expressed interested in using some of it.
Although production for D&Z is currently at a standstill, the company is still operating under a contract to provide caretaker services for the Army through the remainder of the transfer process of the plant to the Great Plains Development Authority.
GPDA deputy director Ann Charles is working on the process of assuring the industrial park with rail service.
She said at last week’s public meeting that she had received verbal assurance that the Union Pacific Railroad would work with the industrial park to provide rail lines. She emphasized the importance of such lines in locating new industries.
Scott Road, which is the main tributary road to the entrance of the industrial park, will be overlaid soon with asphalt after final bids and specifications are approved.
Charles said the plan is for GPDA to mill and overlay one eighth of a mile of Southern Street, providing an attractive entry to that end, in addition to a third sign being installed announcing entrance to the Great Plains Industrial Park.
Brian Kinzie, ex-officio member and Labette County Commissioner, said the county has applied for Southern to be overlaid to Pratt Road with funds possibly coming from the $4 million stimulus which the Kansas Department of Transportation is providing to a 17-county area. Kinzie said the cost of the project in Labette County would be $432,000 with the county providing a $100,000 local match.
Also last week the GPDA, executive director Dan Goddard gave a report on acquiring land in the former KAAP site, pending approval by the Environmental Protection Agency and other appropriate agencies.
Significant cleanup of properties has already taken place, and majority of the land has no environmental problems, but there still are buildings, land and equipment that will need cleared before they can be transferred to the GPDA.
Over the next two months, contractors will be removing contaminated dirt from an old pistol range. Goddard said there is a 50/50 chance that private contractors from this region might be utilized rather than those requiring certification by the U.S. Army.
The cost of the land conveyance has yet to be determined.

Industrial park is the hope of replacing the plant’s activity

For the first time since World War II, the making of military ammunition has stopped. The Kansas Army Ammunition Plant officially closed with a brief ceremony last week during which an olive drab cover was placed over the installation’s red flag. About 75 people attended the event in the basement of the facility’s buildings located between Parsons and Oswego.
The shuttering of the KAAP was a part of the most recent congressional plan to close and reconfigure military bases.
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” said Ruby Redmond, 85, who worked in personnel at the plant from 1951 until retiring in 1994.
The plant actually made its last bomb — a sensor-fused weapon that is capable of hitting multiple targets and dropped from aircraft — in December. The facility started producing munitions in 1942, when more than 7,000 employees built bombs and artillery rounds bound for Europe and the Pacific.
Redmond said the plant was its own city when she worked there, with thousands of employees working around the clock to build ammunition for the Korean and Vietnam wars.
“We pulled in people. We needed people,” she said.
The plant had 1,300 workers after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but less than 300 when production stopped in December. Wages at the plant averaged more than $40,000, nearly twice the median salary in Labette County, one of the state’s lowest in per capita income.
Pentagon officials targeted the plant for closure in 2005 as part of the Base Realignment and Closure process. Production was transferred to ammunition plants in Indiana, Iowa, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Local officials did not fight the closure and had even started working toward converting the plant to industrial purposes before it made the BRAC list. An Army spokesman said Wednesday that the plant was the first of its installations from the 2005 BRAC to be deactivated, nearly a year ahead of schedule.
The Army expects to transfer the land to the new owners by the end of this year.
Day & Zimmermann Inc., which has run the plant for the Army since 1970, is buying 4,000 acres and two production lines with the hope of eventually landing a new munitions contract.
Great Plains Development Authority, created by local officials, will own about 3,000 acres. It plans to create an industrial park with highway and rail access and already has received some federal and state aid for the work.
“It’s not going to happen tomorrow, and it’s not going to happen in a year. But it’s going to start right now,” said Ann Charles, a former newspaper publisher and deputy director of the authority.
The ammunition plant was the only casualty in Kansas during the 2005 BRAC process. The state overall saw significant gains in military activity, including the return of the 1st Infantry Division to Fort Riley after 10 years in Germany.

Day and Zimmerman Inc., Parsons, has announced that further layoffs in the near future are likely.
A maximum of 120 employees could potentially be laid off, company officials said.
With no new major military contracts acquired as hoped, DZI could not justify keeping all employees in its work force at the Parsons site.

Day & Zimmerman will be the first major occupant of the newly formed Great Plains Industrial Park located between Parsons and Oswego.
Members of the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant’s Local Redevelopment Planning Authority met last Thursday to sign an agreement with D&Z, assigning it space in the industrial park and assuring the company’s presence for many years in the future.
Day & Zimmerman began operated at the Labette County site in 1970 as a manufacturer of conventional munitions, detonators, anti-armor cluster munitions and ACM bombs. D&Z is a major manufacturer of sensor-fused weapons for the U.S. military for many years.
Official closing of the KAAP started in 2005 when the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended the base’s phasing out. A focal point of the transition team, over the past three years, has been keeping Day & Zimmerman in Parsons where it will continue to be a contract manufacturer of munitions. The base will no longer be an asset of the U.S. Army, but will be under the auspices of the Local Redevelopment Planning Authority.
LRPA Executive Director Dan Goddard Thursday’s meeting was a giant step to insure that D&Z will continue to hold a major presence in the Great Plains Industrial Park.
Overall, the park comprises 13,727 acres which lay south and east of Parsons, or north and west of Oswego.
D&Z will occupy approximately 4,000 acres in the park and the remainder will be available for industrial or other development.
There will be parcels as large as 3,000 acres and a large number of operations and storage buildings available for development.  There is a 7,000 square foot office building outside the security perimeter and the facility has its own water and sewage treatment systems, with over 100 miles of roadway and 33 miles of improved rail lines.
Goddard said Day and Zimmerman will complete its production operation contracts with the U.S. Army which will expire on Dec. 31 of this year. Future operations of D&Z will be handled strictly as a munitions contractor, not a manager of Army assets.
Labette County Commissioners were on hand for the signing and they have passed a charter resolution outlining the powers of the LRPA and the LRA which eventually will become the sole community-involved entity.
Goddard said the LRA then will become the single point for the environmental cleanup, economic development, land use and other services once the plant is transferred to the community.
A consultant group, Matrix Design, was brought on board to help in every detail of the infrastructure and create a business plan that would lead the future development of the plant. A master plan will be presented by Mattrix on Aug. 5, according to Goddard.
“It takes a while to get these things done, but we’re getting there,” Goddard said.
Great Plains Industrial Park has a new website (greatplainsindustrialpark.com). Goddard said the website’s purpose will be to provide industry a location for obtaining information to help them make decisions about a potential relocation to southeast Kansas and to keep the citizens of the region informed about the progress of the transfer.