Burial pits

At the DOE s Sandia National Laboratory ER Site 228A in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an SGS was used to sort 1352 yd of soil contaminated with uranium from burial pits. The unit cost of 154/yd was based on the operation s actual costs of 220,040. These costs included 29,000... 

Treblinka Elimination of Corpses Without a Trace 4.1. Burial Pits... 

According to the Slovenian historian Tone Ference,84 the upper extermination area, which is said to have been within the camp area of Treblinka II, covered an area of about 172,000 sq.ft. however, to forestall any objections on this score, we shall base our further considerations on the size of the extermination area indicated by the archival plan, namely about 193,700 sq.ft. This area held not only burial pits and the material dug up in the course of their excavation, but gas chambers and other buildings as well. If one accepts the 875,000 dead mentioned in the Jerusalem Trial of John... 

Demjanjuk, then 14 burial pits a la Rosenberg and a total of some 4.6 million cu.ft. of excavated earth would have been involved in the accommodation of all these bodies. Since these 14 pits would have taken up an area of 271,150 sq.ft, they could not have fit into the extermination area measuring only 193,700 sq.ft. Further, the heaps of excavated material resulting from the 14 burial pits would have required an additional area of more than 392,000 sq.ft. 

If, on the other hand, one proceeds on the assumption that the claims of 3 million victims are correct, then 47 burial pits covering some 910,000 sq.ft, would have been needed these would have taken up almost two-thirds of the area of Treblinka II - not even including the excavated soil going with them. 

The ash content of a human body makes up about 5.6% of the body s weight 114 given a 132 lb. body, this comes to 7.3 lbs. The ashes from the 875,000 burned bodies would thus have weighed 6,387,500 lbs. The total quantity of ashes - wood ashes plus human ashes - would therefore have weighed almost 4,000 metric tons, or 8.6 million pounds, all of which (according to the witnesses) were then mixed with the soil and thrown back into the pits.115 Even if this quantity of ash had been mixed with the roughly 3.53 million cubic feet of soil excavated from the burial pits, it would be easy to find evidence for human remains of the quantity alleged by the witnesses. It must also be... 

The burial pits and cremation sites described would have covered an area far greater than the entire so-called death camp. 

The outer edge of another earspool (Figure 3), the second used in this investigation, comes from Mound E, whose boundaries overlap those of Mound C. Mound E is thought to be later in time because its earth fill is above that of Mound C (I). Near the center of Mound E is a submound burial pit, Feature 33 (F-33), with the remains of a male in an extended position (Burial 17). A number of high-status objects surrounded the male burial. The Mound E earspool, classified as Type B by Jefferies (I), differs in size and construction from the Mound C example. 

There is no information concerning the burial of the bronze halberd under study however, it is assumed that it must have been buried in a traditional Shang manner. Silk fabric pseudomorphs were found on the halberd therefore, it must have been placed in contact with fabric resting either on the ground, on a shelf, or on a body in the burial pit. Each of these three situations could provide a different outlook on the chemical reactions involved in pseudomorph formation. Due to lack of site information, the influence of the placement of the halberd can only be speculated upon. 

Large burial sites Pueblo, Colo. Tooele/Deseret Chemical Depot, Utah Suspected to contain buried M70 bombs in burn/burial pits Approx. 25 pits where CWM bombs and 4.2-in. mortars were burned and buried Site will be closed under Base Realignment and Closure Many CWM munitions at this site are expected to be empty due to burn/burial process 1. Excavate pits (using appropriate methods, either manual or robotic) 2. Identify potential CWM as it is uncovered 3. Assess potential CWM using x-ray and portable isotopic neutron spectroscopy 4. Dispose of CWM in appropriate system(s) staged at the site... 

A remove-and-dispose approach will require that the CWM be removed from the large burial site no faster than it can be characterized and disposed of. The time it takes to characterize and dispose of the CWM will, therefore, determine the rate at which it can be removed from the large burial site. However, because many of the objects that will be removed from large burial sites will probably have been emptied of their contents prior to being placed in the burial pits, or because many may have leaked after placement in the pits and prior to their removal, they may not require much treatment before disposal. 

If chemical agent detector dogs are demonstrated to be able to reliably detect CWM at very low concentrations, this capability could be applied to assessing large CWM burial sites. For example, it is to be expected that some of the sites, or portions of some of the sites, are free of chemical agent because no CWM was buried in that section of the burial or only empty CWM containers were buried there.8 If chemical detector dogs could reliably confirm the absence of CWM, the excavation and removal of objects from portions of the burial pits so identified could possibly be carried out with reduced personal protective equipment and without other precautions normally taken for CWM excavation (negative pressure enclosures, for example). 

At present, radioactive wastes are Being held at the DOE facilities including those in Richland, Washington, Savannah River, South Carolina, and at other reactor sites. These transuranic wastes are stored either above ground or in shallow burial pits. Neither of these methods are intended as long-term storage solutions. 

In another example, the State of Maryland has a public park that was formerly a Civil War fort. At a meeting with the U.S. Park Service, which owns the site, the Corps of Engineers representative stated that the military found a map (sketch) showing munitions burial pits in a line. A geophysical survey confirmed the presence of ferrous metal anomalies compatible with the map. The State of Maryland has been trying to get a copy of that map for over a year at last report. Apparently, the sketch has been so closely held by Huntsville that it was never made part of the FUDS file at the Corps of Engineers. Moreover, the existence of some information regarding munitions burials must exist or Huntsville would not have flown a UXO technician with a metal detector to the site in the first place. 

Other portions of this hook will deal with historical searches, photo-grammetry, bioassay, groundwater plumes, and other methods of narrowing the areas to he searched. With regard to a typical military installation, it may be difficult to completely reach excluded areas, even using all of the science just mentioned. Certainly, the range will be an important area— however, a burial pit could be found almost anywhere. 

What the District of Columbia did not know at the time was that the Army knew all along that there was a burial site at the Glenbrook Road home. They had discovered their mistake in the location of POI24 in 1994. They had conducted a geophysical survey of the property and had found an anomaly (a reading on a metal detector indicating the presence of metal underground), which they believed was a burial pit. Nevertheless, they wrote in the June 1995 No Further Action Record of Decision that there... 

Several historical documents list the land owned by the Girls Reform School as 185 acres, and that includes the area where the burial pit is located. The relic hunter stated to the ERA and the author that he found an anomaly approximately 10 ft by 10 ft. He further stated that the anomaly was comprised of individual shells but that they were so dense as to make it impossible to separate out the individual shells even with a VHF detector with an average search coil. 

The Cut and Fill map shows several areas of deep fill in the federal property compatible with the witness description. The undeniable fact that a narrow-gauge railroad line existed on the federal property and the discovery of one burial pit on a hillside adjacent to that railroad give credence to the witness statement. Three items being developed at the AUES— Lewisite, ricin, and the toxic smoke candles—could have been termed strategic weapons as the term was used in the ERA CID report. 

The District asked the Corps to sample for arseiuc in the surface soil of the address where the first burial pits intentionally discovered were located. Highly elevated samples were detected, up to 1000 ppm. They then... 

The District has asked the Corps to geophysically survey and excavate the burial pit of shells and the impact area near the Reservoir. They have asked the Corps to sample the groundwater near burial sites. They have asked the Corps to expand the points of interest and the boundaries of Spring Valley. They have organized a task force, which has added 12 areas of interest to date. The Corps is currently considering expanding the boundaries. 

Excavate the burial pit under the Public Safety Building. 

The problem becomes especially serious when materials in the waste dissolve in groundwater, as often happens when rain falls on accumulations at the surface or in shallow burial pits and sinks into the ground. In surface waters contamination is generally apparent at once, and remedial measures can be taken. But contamination underground can continue for a long time undetected and is difficult or nearly impossible to correct at a reasonable cost. 

Once the metal detectors are selected for a particular site, usually after a prove-out in the same soil type for the particular types of ordnance suspected, the method of searching must be developed. Various issues should be addressed such as whether the entire site can be searched and whether the focus is individual shells or burial pits or both, CWM or high explosives, standard or experimental ordnance, future land use, terrain, vegetation, projected depth of ordnance, and so on. 

The District of Columbia has conducted a geophysical search of nearly all of the area between the Dalecarlia Parkway and the road around the Reservoir. They had previously located narrow-gauge railroad spikes near the fence and the District identified the five remaining shells as 75-mm shells consistent with those of the AUES era. Finally, the burial pit and rail bed is just south of a large impact area in which the District has found numerous pieces of frag. 

---