More "good neighbor" bs...
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/policemilitary8.htm
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/policemilitary8.htm
Police, military team searched base critic's home for munitions
By KEVIN DENNEHY
STAFF WRITER
SANDWICH - The home of Paul Zanis, a longtime critic of the military cleanup at Camp Edwards who is called a hero by some and derided by others, was searched by state police and a National Guard explosives team last week.
Despite a search of his home by police and military bomb experts, Paul Zanis of Sandwich retained much of his collection of military artifacts, some of which date to the 17th century. He is holding a LAW (Light Anti-tank Weapon) rocket, which was developed at Camp Edwards.
(Staff photo by ARNOLD MILLER)
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The police said they were responding to a call from an anonymous woman who said she had concerns about purported explosives stored at Zanis' home. The woman told them she is a neighbor of Zanis.
A Sandwich resident, Zanis for years has pushed the National Guard to be more aggressive in the base cleanup.
After searching for about two hours, the police and bomb squad members left with four small projectiles from Zanis' collection of military mementos.
Zanis called the search the latest case of military harassment in response to his activism, and said that he's had enough.
After years of threats and prank calls, he said he has decided to put his home on Cove Road in Sandwich up for sale and is moving to Florida.
The pieces of ammunition, which according to Zanis contain no explosives, were taken from his collection of 50 pieces. He started the collection more than 30 years ago when he first started finding bullets on Camp Edwards as a child. Zanis, a 46-year-old father of three, has called on his knowledge of the base firing ranges in recent years to assist the military and environmental regulators pinpoint areas of contamination.
There is no indication that the pieces taken are dangerous, according to the police.
"They did take some stuff out of there ... (but) it didn't appear to be anything of concern," said Sandwich Police Detective James Spofford, who assisted state police in the search. "They just wanted to check to see if they were safe."
Some are disturbed by the timing of the search.
John DeVillars, who spent six years as the regional administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency that is guiding the base cleanup, said he is troubled by the timing.
It came just four days after Zanis had an encounter with a military official during a public meeting in Bourne.
"At the very least, the timing is curious," he said. "He deserves to be thanked, not harassed ... I think he is one of the small handful of local heroes in this story."
Zanis' knowledge of contamination areas has focused the search and saved taxpayers millions of dollars, DeVillars said.
But Zanis' aggressive approach to the cleanup process has earned him some enemies.
On Jan. 25, he allegedly threatened a National Guard employee who Zanis said was staring at him during a tense meeting of the Impact Area Groundwater team, which advises and monitors the Camp Edwards cleanup.
Officials with the National Guard Bureau say they may not return to the meetings if citizen members, such as Zanis, do not act more respectfully.
In fact, Zanis said he may not be willing to deal with the issues either. He said he's thrown out most of the paperwork that he had collected over the years, and is likely to step down as a member of the citizen team. In fact, he proclaims himself ready to leave the Cape.
The police search of his home last week, he said, was the final straw. And, he said, the timing is too coincidental to believe that the National Guard was not involved.
For decades military officials claimed that artillery and mortar target practice did not harm the environment. But in the first-ever investigation of groundwater flowing under a target range, or impact area, revealed that explosives from munitions can seep through the soil into groundwater.
Royal Dutch Explosive and High Melting Explosive, used in artillery and mortar shells, have been found in groundwater under the base and off base.
"We're talking serious business here - this cleanup is having repercussions across the country," Zanis said. "I think the National Guard is taking the low road, and destroying the people who are trying to make the military responsible."
Military officials insist that is not the case. While they've heard about the search, they say it was simply a reaction to community concern.
"We are clean as a whistle on this one," said Jan Larkin of the Joint Program Office, which coordinates base activities. "It was his neighbors that called asking for it to be searched, for the safety of the neighborhood."
What's in there?
State police say an anonymous woman who identified herself as a neighbor called them about Zanis on the morning of Jan. 29. The woman had seen an article in the Upper Cape Codder that stated Zanis kept "a shed packed with a motley assortment of old mortars, artillery rounds and other munitions," and featured a photograph of Zanis with a rocket launcher.
The woman "had some serious concerns for her safety, the safety of her children and the safety of her neighborhood," said state Trooper Daniel Lynch, who works for the State Fire Marshal's office in an affidavit to support a search warrant, submitted at Barnstable District Court.
Lynch contacted the Sandwich police and fire departments that afternoon.
According to Lynch, Sandwich Fire Chief Dennis Newman had "grave concerns for the citizens that live in the neighborhood as well as the safety of his own men who may be summonsed to respond to an emergency or fire at this location where a shed full of mortars, artillery rounds and ammunition may be located," according to the affidavit.
State police, Spofford and members of the Air National Guard explosives team went to Zanis' house at about 8 p.m. that night, and searched for possible explosives. The military explosives experts participate in all searches for explosives.
Zanis said the police and Guardsmen were polite and that he showed them around the house so that they could do a thorough search. He did not want them to have to come back again, he said.
Searchers came away with a 30mm World War II projectile Zanis bought on the Internet, an 81mm dummy mortar he said he found several years ago near the Bourne landfill, and a pair of anti-tank projectiles he said he found while clearing dirt bike trails in the 1980s near the landfill.
He started collecting shells as a child, when he played in the fields and firing ranges of Camp Edwards. His father served in the Air Force at the Upper Cape base. Some of his collection was picked up in Europe in the 1970s, while he served in an Army tank unit. Others, he bought online or at antique shops.
The collection includes cannon balls from the 1600s, military helmets and several projectiles from various eras. He said he will someday donate them to a military museum.
None of the artifacts, he said, are explosive or dangerous.
"I would never in my life want to endanger anyone," Zanis said. "I'm trying to clean up the environment, not hurt people."
History on base
Zanis' name is well-known by those who have followed the enormous base cleanup in recent years.
It was in 1997 that he pointed out several areas on Camp Edwards where he believed munitions were buried. And, in fact, a cache of more than 100 mortar shells was found in an area Zanis had mentioned, within one mile of the Forestdale elementary school.
Two years ago, Zanis told military and environmental officials that an excavator had told him that he'd found and re-buried several munitions in a Forestdale development that borders the base.
Some criticized Zanis after an exhaustive survey of the Grand Oak neighborhood in Forestdale yielded no evidence of the buried munitions.
Last year, he led investigators to bullets in Ashumet Pond.
Environmental regulators say Zanis' knowledge of Camp Edwards has helped them focus the enormous cleanup of the Upper Cape base. Information provided by Zanis about what went on in the artillery impact area when it was his playground helped cleanup officials site tests wells. Water from some of these wells was found to contain explosives.
"Paul has been extremely valuable to our efforts to learn about past practices at MMR and what were the sources of contamination," said Elisabeth Higgins of the EPA.