{"id":1708,"date":"2026-06-04T17:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1708"},"modified":"2026-06-04T17:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:06:22","slug":"drums-found-buried-at-former-cold-war-navy-base-on-ncs-outer-banks-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1708","title":{"rendered":"Drums found buried at former Cold War Navy base on NC\u2019s Outer Banks, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

A secretive Cold War operation once located on North Carolina\u2019s Outer Banks may have surrendered its last secret, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.<\/p>\n

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After three years of searching for the source of contamination in the soil, engineers located eight buried drums.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome drums were empty, and some contained a mixed-petroleum product. The drums were found near an area that was labeled on older maps as a drum storage area,\u201d the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, told The Charlotte Observer in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the 1950s, military installations were known to utilize dedicated central heating plants to store petroleum products which could be distributed through fuel transfer lines\/pipes from bulk storage tanks or drum staging areas to supply buildings across the installation with heating oil for a heating system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The base near Buxton was home to an undersea surveillance station starting in the late 1950s, the National Park Service says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) played a crucial role in the U.S. Navy\u2019s efforts to track and monitor Soviet submarine activity during the Cold War. The system … consisted of a network of underwater listening stations,\u201d the National Park Service reports.<\/p>\n

The base was shuttered in 1982, then used by the U.S. Coast Guard until 2010, the NPS says.<\/p>\n

When the U.S. Coast Guard moved out, all the buildings were torn down, but a hazardous infrastructure remained hidden just below the surface.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s now a key part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which encompasses 28,000 acres<\/a> of barrier islands.<\/p>\n

Coastal erosion<\/a> on Hatteras Island began uncovering the base\u2019s buried foundations in 2023, and park officials soon noticed a sheen on the water and the smell of gas. A half-mile of beach was declared hazardous and closed to tourists.<\/p>\n

Excavations at the site were completed on May 28, after the Corps of Engineers removed 19,285 tons of \u201cpetroleum impacted soil,\u201d 315 linear feet of asbestos pipes, and 3,050,000 pounds of concrete, abandoned utilities, fencing and asphalt, according to a news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe petroleum impacted soil was located around the former heating oil plant, indicating the petroleum likely originated from a release at the plant. Some of that petroleum likely migrated under and around Building 19, which the team excavated and removed,\u201d the Corps of Engineers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn future actions, anticipated during the fall of 2026, the Corps of Engineers will begin comprehensive sampling within the project area to delineate the nature and extent of any remaining petroleum contamination within the soil and groundwater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buxton is located about a 240-mile drive southeast from downtown Raleigh.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 12:41 PM<\/span> with the headline “Drums found buried at former Cold War Navy base on NC\u2019s Outer Banks, officials say.” <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Source of contamination found at site of a clandestine Cold War Navy base once operated on North Carolina\u2019s Outer Banks, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-todays-edition"],"yoast_head":"\nDrums found buried at former Cold War Navy base on NC\u2019s Outer Banks, officials say - Durham Moving Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1708\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drums found buried at former Cold War Navy base on NC\u2019s Outer Banks, officials say - 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