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Bill Gayne

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WORK ON LINKS AT LANGLEY IS HALTED AFTER DISCOVERY
« on: June 15, 2005, 10:26:59 AM »
From the Daily Press

HAMPTON -- It was a serious sand wedge - maybe 5 tons of yellow-painted steel, with smoke belching from its stack and a blade that took a major divot alongside the 10th green of the Blue Course at Langley Air Force Base that day in early February.

Then the driver found a hazard in the hazard.

He had no club in his bag for the 10K Type 1 bomb, a French munition that had apparently been dropped at Langley before 1937, when the base closed its target range.

Article continued at

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-34084sy0jun15,0,6327781.story?coll=dp-headlines-topnews


Lester George

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Re:WORK ON LINKS AT LANGLEY IS HALTED AFTER DISCOVERY
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2005, 03:23:34 PM »
Bill,

Another untold occupational hazard for golf course architects.  

We are doing the design at Langley, and believe me, this is just one of the hurdles.  If I were not prior military with a valid ID card, I'm not sure how we would do it under todays heightened security measures.  The first topo maps they sent us were blacked out due to proximity to sensitive information contained on them.  

We just keep waiting for the "go back to work" message.  

Lester

Mike Worth

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Re:WORK ON LINKS AT LANGLEY IS HALTED AFTER DISCOVERY
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2005, 08:49:43 PM »
No offense, but having played the majority of my golf at the Langley AFB courses from 1993-1995, it may not be a bad idea to set off some of these 'bombs' and start over :-).

Even by the standards 10-12 years ago the Langley courses were very short

Patrick_Mucci

Re:WORK ON LINKS AT LANGLEY IS HALTED AFTER DISCOVERY
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2005, 09:44:37 PM »
Lester  George,

How much different is the permiting process on a military base ?

Is there a need for permits, or can you do as you please ?
« Last Edit: June 15, 2005, 09:45:06 PM by Patrick_Mucci »

Lester George

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Re:WORK ON LINKS AT LANGLEY IS HALTED AFTER DISCOVERY
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2005, 12:25:54 PM »

SS1,

Believe me. Blowing it up and starting over is what we want to do.  Unfortunately the is no money allocated for "renovation" just money from the agencies tasked with "Hurricane Isabel recovery", so money is tight, very tight.

Patrick,

Its much different than it used to be.  The first military work I did was in the early nineties, and we could do just about anything we wanted.  Since the EPA starting investing military installations in their "superfund" sites, things have gotten much stricter.  In this case, we were provided maps of all known bomb impacts and landfill activities since.  What we didn't know was the depth of ordinance or its volatility.  Another interesting aspect was ponds.  The course sits on a very attractive marsh on a penninsula that has thousands of birds.  But, I was not allowed to expand ponds for strategy or irrigation storage because of "potential bird strikes" on nearby F-16 and new F-22 aircraft from geese that might congregate there.  

Just wierd stuff like that.  All things the government can spend money on to investigate, study, consider, etc.  But they can't spend money on having reasonable facilities for our men and women in uniform.  Sad but true.  

Lester

Mike Worth

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Re:WORK ON LINKS AT LANGLEY IS HALTED AFTER DISCOVERY
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2005, 04:25:01 PM »
I guess my comment is more intended toward the fact that most military courses don't ahve the land, or not enough money, to lengthen or make the other changes necessary to keep up with the changes that technology have made on the game in the last 10 years.   Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the Langely AFB courses 6200 yrds, par 72 and the other one about 6400?  Ten years ago that was ok, but with no room to expand, and limited MWR budgets, military courses are sort of stuck.

Is the only reason they redid the course because of the flood?

I did play alot of golf there from 93-95, I have good memories of the place.

Larry_Rodgers

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Re:WORK ON LINKS AT LANGLEY IS HALTED AFTER DISCOVERY
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2005, 11:54:55 PM »
Like Lester we have been working in the shadows at Langley, digging irrigation trenches through unexploded ordinances is not good on machinery or moral. I was pleased by your comment of "alot of good memories". This thought process is good for golf and renovations of affordable golf is critical to the game we love no matter how long, or rating it has.

I do hope to get going soon as most of the experts in the unexploded ordinances field are in Afganistan, Kuwait and Iraq, so we may have to wait.

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