Seneca Army Depot

Location map
New York
label = Seneca Army Depot
label_size = 100
lat = 42.754367
long = -76.865845

The former Seneca Army Depot occupied 10,587 acres (43 km²) between Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake in Seneca County New York, USA. It was used as a munitions disposal and munitions storage facility by the United States Army from 1941 until it was announced that it would be decommissioned in the 1990s. Since the Gulf War, the base has been phased out, and it has since been divided into several functions, and this redevelopment continues.

The Seneca Army Depot is located between Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake of the Finger Lakes in New York, southeast of the City of Geneva. The base is in the towns of Varick and Romulus. Adjacent to the storage facility is the Seneca Army Airfield with a long runway, capable of handling large cargo aircraft.

The depot was a major employer in the region. It was linked to the outside world by railroad lines and highways (NY-96 and NY-96A), in addition to the airfield.

Demonstrations to close the facility

From July 4 through November 1983, the depot was the focus of antiwar and antinuclear activists, when the Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice was established. Groups of demonstrators staged civil disobedience protests, climbing the fence surrounding the depot. During one protest in November 1983, Dr. Benjamin Spock climbed the fence and was arrested. Writer/activist Grace Paley, and feminist artist Helene Aylon were also among the demonstrators. On three occasions--July 4, August 1, and November 3, 1983, Aylon covered the fence surrounding the depot with women's pillowcases that in 1982 were filled with "rescued earth" from nuclear sites across the country during her "Earth Ambulance" voyage and sleep-out at the United Nations.

Current disposition of the depot land

For a time the depot housed a unit of Kid's Peace, but that has now been taken over by the Hillside Children's Center, a similar program for children which is headquartered in Rochester. The former depot property also includes a maximum-security state prison, Five Points Correctional Facility. A new Seneca County Law Enforcement Center was constructed on a portion of the site, opening in May 2007. The depot's former airfield is slated for use as a New York State Police training center. In August 2002, [http://www.glen-scca.org/ The Glen Region] of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) began using the air field for autocross racing competitions. Since then the site has also been used by the following SCCA regions: [http://www.flr-scca.com/ Finger Lakes] , [http://wny-scca.com/site/ Western New York] and [http://www.mohud-scca.org/ Mohawk Hudson] . The Finger Lakes Region used the site to host the North East Division Solo Championship in July 2006. Starting in early 2007, the Cornell 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge Team began utilizing the depot's network of private roads as a proving ground to test its autonomous vehicle technology.

Portions of the warehouses at the former base are leased to The Advantage Group, which runs a varied storage and shipping business. Much of the housing at the depot has been sold to private developers and is now available as part of the area's civilian housing stock.

Much of the railroad track and outer yards are being used for railroad car storage. At current date there are no customers shipping by rail at this time.

In early 2007 Cilion announced plans to build an ethanol plant on a portion of the former depot, which has caused some local conservation groups concern for the world's largest herd of all-white deer.

Discussions continue regarding the use of the rest of the land, much of which is dotted with large, concrete munitions storage bunkers known as igloos which were built at the beginning of World War II.

The deer herd

The white deer, long the symbol for the depot, began appearing at the base after it was fenced in 1941. A handful of whitetail deer who carried a recessive gene for all-white coats were isolated within. (They are not albinos, as is frequently assumed.) The base initially allowed only brown coated deer to be killed, so the herd of white deer has now grown to more than 200 deer. Although, occasionally hunters are allowed inside to kill a white deer to take home as a prize. White deer do occur naturally in the wild, but it was the depot's fence which led to the formation of such a large herd of the normally rare deer.

External links

* [http://www.scca.com SCCA]
* [http://www.flr-scca.com Finger Lakes Region SCCA]
* [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/seneca.htm Global Security's Seneca Army Depot Page]
* [http://senecawhitedeer.org White Deer]
* [http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?qwork=4753292&matches=24&qsort=r Nuclear Summer: The Clash of Communities at the Seneca Women’s Peace Encampment]
* [http://www.wilpf.org/us-wilpf/timeline.htm Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Timeline]
* [http://www.banningandlow.com/EN/vinatge-seneca-army-depot-women-for-peace-poster.html Helene Aylon’s Poster for the Women’s Encampment]
* [http://www.nandotimes.com/nt/images/century/photos/century091.html Dr. Benjamin Spock Climbs the Fence at Seneca]