Contamination aside, feds sell 130 former missile silos in Miss

WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. -- Warnings against digging more than two feet into the ground because of cancer-causing chemicals haven't kept people from buying 130 of the 150 former missile silo plots in Missouri being sold by the federal government.

The Air Force removed missiles and imploded the silos years ago, but that left polychlorinated biphenyls -- or PCBs -- buried beneath the ground, along with other contaminants such as asbestos and fuel.

Besides the digging restrictions, buyers of the plots can't install water wells or build structures without permission from the government.

Much of the property is being bought back by farmers who owned the land before the government took it 40 years ago to install the Cold War-era Minuteman II silos. Some farmers said they purchased the plots -- at what some believe are priced too high because of the restrictions -- because they didn't want someone else having them.

"I didn't really want to buy it back, but it has a frontage on a blacktop road that is well-traveled," said Mary Gorrell, who bought a plot on her farm near Sedalia. "We were afraid someone would buy it and it would become a public nuisance."

Military officials said as long as the land is not disturbed, the contaminants should not be hazardous to humans or animals. But the Missouri Department of Natural Resources wants the government to do more to monitor hazardous-waste sites in the future, especially as the land changes hands.

The Missouri Legislature is expected to debate a bill next session that would require monitoring of hazardous-waste sites such as the missile silos for hundreds of years.