Military

Camp Stanley Storage Activity
Boerne, TX

Located northwest of San Antonio, Camp Stanley, a separate activity of Red River Army Depot, is a weapons and munitions supply, maintenance, test and storage activity. The post supports locations throughout CONUS and selected overseas areas. The post includes 4,000 acres with 630,000 square feet of storage space.

In 1990 the Leon Springs Military Reservation consisted of Camp Stanley, largely used for ammunition storage and testing, and Camp Bullis, utilized for firing ranges, maneuver areas for army, air force, and marine combat units, and for field training of the various medical units from Brooke Army Medical Centerqv at Fort Sam Houston.

The old San Antonio Arsenal, originally built in 1859, was poorly located and by 1919 had been surrounded by the downtown area. It was moved to Camp Stanley and by 1937 required an area of 1,760 acres. At this time Camp Stanley was devoted to storage and testing of ordnance materials, and all other military activities at the Leon Springs Military Reservation were conducted at Camp Bullis.

Camp Stanley, originally Camp Funston, was a subpost of the San Antonio Arsenalqv and operated as an ammunition storage depot. It was named Camp Stanley on October 2, 1917, for Brig. Gen. David Sloane Stanleyqv and designated at first as an infantry cantonment. It was located at Leon Springs Military Reservation, twenty miles northwest of San Antonio. Chinese refugees brought from Mexico in 1916 by Gen. John J. Pershingqv were transferred from Fort Sam Houston to Camp Stanley after World War I. They were finally registered as legal immigrants in 1922. In 1922 the camp became a subpost of Camp Travis and was to be used as a temporary garrison at peace strength.

In September 1933 Camp Stanley was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ordnance Department, and new buildings were constructed to eliminate hazards. Magazine and igloo space totaled 232,100 square feet. On July 1, 1947, Camp Stanley was consolidated with the San Antonio General Distribution Depot and on July 1, 1949, was designated the Camp Stanley Area of Red River Arsenal, Texarkana, a class-two installation under the jurisdiction of the chief of ordnance. In 1985 Camp Stanley was a subpost of nearby Camp Bullis.

Recovered chemical warfare materiel (CWM) includes items recovered from range-clearing operations, chemical weapons burial sites, and other locations. When suspected recovered CWM is found, specially trained personnel are called to the site to assess the content and condition of the materiel and determine if it is safe for storage or transportation. Recovered CWM is currently stored at eight locations throughout the United States and on Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. The Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Project is developing transportable treatment systems to destroy recovered CWM, since U.S. law prohibits the destruction of non-stockpile chemical materiel at stockpile destruction facilities in the continental United States. Records show that in 1942 at least three mustard-filled shells were buried on site, but were recovered and destroyed in 1948. The Army is fairly sure no other chemical weapons exist, although the area has other hazardous wastes.

Camp Stanley has eliminated the operations of disposing of waste munitions in their land based open burning/open detonation unit. Another Department of Defense (DOD) facility, which is permitted, will dispose of waste munitions for Camp Stanley.

Phosphate-induced metal stabilization (PIMS) is a technology developed to treat the contamination in place, either by mixing the treatment amendments directly into the soil or by emplacing the amendments within a permeable reactive barrier to passively treat groundwater. A demonstration of an in-situ process using PIMS for remediation of lead-contaminated soil from training ranges was conducted at the U.S. Army's Camp Stanley Storage Activity, a subinstallation of Red River Army Depot, in Boerne, Texas. The demonstration at Camp Stanley Storage Activity was the first field-scale demonstration of this technology.