At the beginning of the Cold War, in the late 1950s, an essential component of the federal government’s first line of defense against a possible nuclear attack by the Soviet Union lay hidden in the woods of Westhampton.
Fifty-six nuclear-tipped missiles were stored in metal garages nestled in the woods just north of Old Country Road. Their potential target: Soviet bombers whose mission was to drop atomic bombs on vital American targets, including New York City, some 75 miles to the west.
“In 1950, the U.S. government was looking into the possibility of shooting a small nuclear device at an attacking airplane,” said Chris Bright, an independent scholar of U.S. nuclear anti-aircraft weapons who lives in Virginia. “At the time, the U.S. thought you needed a nuclear bomb to stop an aircraft.”
The... more
Fifty-six nuclear-tipped missiles were stored in metal garages nestled in the woods just north of Old Country Road. Their potential target: Soviet bombers whose mission was to drop atomic bombs on vital American targets, including New York City, some 75 miles to the west.
“In 1950, the U.S. government was looking into the possibility of shooting a small nuclear device at an attacking airplane,” said Chris Bright, an independent scholar of U.S. nuclear anti-aircraft weapons who lives in Virginia. “At the time, the U.S. thought you needed a nuclear bomb to stop an aircraft.”
The... more
It's quiet, peaceful, one of the most secluded but accessible areas east of the Floyd, and we've got a nice deep lake that doesn['t have olive drab desks, typewriters and file cabinets at the bottom.
On second thought, stay away!
Why use a middleman? The County has trucks & people who could take all the scrap directly to recycling facilities. Why settle for half and use a company that is a HUGE
political donor?
I'm sure with budget & service cuts coming - some County employees would be happy to have the work clearing the site. Just a thought.......
So stop using today's standards against the 1950's. As the news article stated both Bomarc and Nike-Hercules missiles contained nuclear warheads--please read some history of the cold war. Ground water contamination was not part of the equation then.
When ...more your reader states that yes the "assumption" is "100% correct", that plume contamination "may" be caused by the Bomarc site--sounds like another example of junk science to me. If we are to point fingers-- let's first drill test wells and determine where the contamination "really" originates from.
As for the reader "Shocked" with her condemnation of all "these contaminated military sites"--- Well "noise pollution" is the current bad guy and it is all around us---loud cars, motorcycles, atv's and loud music coming from commercial establishments. Since some your readers who are "so sure" of who these guilty institutions are, let's each one of us do what we can-- to reduce all types of pollution.