Scout leaders ponder
future of Camp Ross
Site near Fernald closed
as a precaution
By Kelly Lewis
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Great Rivers Girl Scout Council will appoint a small task force before December to decide what to do with the closed Camp Ross Trails near the Fernald uranium processing plant.
Worries about the environmental safety led the council’s board of trustees to close the 305-acre camp on Sept. 28, said Barbara Bonifas, executive director of the Cincinnati-area council.
It was not a hasty decision, she said.
The board had been monitoring the area around the Feed Materials Production Center, a plant in northwestern Hamilton County that process uranium metal for government weapons, for four years. Discussion about whether to close the camp began after an increase in leaks of cancer-causing uranium were reported in May.
The U.S. Department of Energy which owns the plant, reported the leaks and said levels of uranium still were not high enough to endanger health.
The Environmental Protection Agency told the board to make its own decision, and the board explained this to parents in a June letter, she said. Parents were concerned, so the council decided to act.
“It is a precautionary move on our part only,” Bonifas said. “We are a program of prevention.”
A prepared statement explains that the board of trustees “is mandated to provide for the health and safety of the girls entrusted to our care.” The board closed the camp because it decided “that it would be in the best interest of the girls.”
About 1,900 Girl Scouts attended day and night camps last summer at Ross, and four other camps owned by the council will be able to accommodate them next year, Bonifas said.
Also two miles away from Fernald is another camp for boys and girls owned by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
“We’ve had concerns,” said the Rev. Ted Kosse, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. But he added, “We are not contemplating closing Fort Scott Camp.”
The 252-acre camp has
been a place for children to bike, swim, play and pray since 1922.
More than 2,300 youths attended camp last summer, said the Rev. Len Wenke,
archdiocesan director of the office of youth ministry.