Hollywood comes, and goes: Producer's vision for missile site never takes off

Remembering the Titans: Second in a series of stories prepared by the community members of the Restoration Advisory Board, appointed by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to help with the TCE clean-up from the former Titan 1-A missile facility in Lincoln. The series focuses on the people whose lives intersected, in big and small ways, with this piece of Cold War history. Are you one of them? Contact us at CommunityRAB@yahoo.com The plot is quintessential Hollywood: Take land once designed to launch weapons of mass destruction and transform it into a beacon for more peaceful goals. A Cold War Cinderella, if you will; instead of rags to riches, think rockets to roses. When the big day arrived, an estimated 500 Lincoln residents, along with TV networks and newspaper reporters, turned out to watch a star-studded cast sprinkle their pixie dust on the former Titan missile facility off Highway 193. "It is no fanciful suggestion to say that if this missile base had been called on to unleash its powers, it could well have brought us to the end of the world," actor Beau Bridges told the crowd. But now, he said, this site would offer "life instead of death." After Bridges spoke, his young son knelt on the ground with two other children and helped plant a flowering peach seed – with a bayonet. The date was Sept. 23, 1971, and the event was Earthside Day, marking the dedication of the brainchild of a successful television producer named Leslie Stevens, whose track record included the sci-fi series "The Outer Limits." Stevens had set his sights on forming a foundation, purchasing the land from Placer County for $35,000 and transforming the site into a nationally recognized ecology research and information center. Local Camp Fire Girls and 4-H students pitched in to help with the mass planting that day, greening up the land that sat pretty much barren since the missile base came and went in the 1960s. Among those taking it all in was a local businessman and community leader named Eli Demas, who had been enlisted by the city to coordinate the venture with Stevens. Demas also spoke briefly, thanking the crowd for coming out to support "living things." Then he grabbed a shovel and planted a shrub. But there would be no happily ever after. When the curtain came down months later, the Earthside Missile Base Ecology Center would be little more than a fantasy. Producer's plan falls through For Demas, the story began when a friend he grew up with, who now happened to be on the Lincoln City Council, gave him Stevens' name and phone number and asked him to talk to Stevens about an idea the producer had for the former missile base. The site housed three Titan I nuclear missiles from 1962 to 1965, until another Titan version rendered those models obsolete. After the U.S. Air Force removed the missiles and dismantled the equipment, Placer County purchased the property. The Demas family was well known in Lincoln. Eli Demas' father was Pete Demas, a Greek immigrant who owned and operated a local department store (one of the city's parks is named after him). The son was no slouch, either. Earlier that year, Eli Demas had been named "Mr. Community Service" by the Chamber of Commerce for his volunteer work, ranging from official duties like serving on the county parks commission and being president of the Rotary Club to personal good deeds like providing transportation for the sick. "Apparently, he knew I'd say yes," is how Demas answers the question of why he got picked to coordinate the event locally. Demas, who is 88 years old now, is sitting in the well-appointed living room of the Roseville house he lives in with his wife, Betty, who taught French and Spanish at Lincoln High School. Next to him is a small stack of mementoes he has dutifully brought out – including a letter from Stevens and another from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, thanking him for his hospitality and enclosing a copy of his story about Earthside Day. He deflects questions about rubbing elbows with celebrities, saying he doesn't get too excited about "muckety-mucks." Back then, Demas was receptive to Stevens' plans. After all, he considered himself an environmentalist (before he retired from his volunteer work, he served 39 years on the county parks commission). But he had his doubts, too. Stevens' plans were grand – perhaps too grand. He envisioned using the underground tunnels for fungus research and yeast cultivation. The three 160-foot-deep missile silos would be used for recycling experiments, as well as studying insects and endangered species. He figured much of the research would be funded by university grants. Demas also worried about the pesky problem of water seeping into the underground facility, which had to be continually pumped out. He blamed the location, explaining it's in the downward path of the Sierra runoff. "I didn't know how they were going to mitigate that." As it turned out, the fatal bullet was something less dramatic. Stevens' foundation simply couldn't raise the money. In December 1972, 15 months after the day Hollywood came to Lincoln, the venture made the local newspaper once again – as one of the top stories of the year. Number seven to be exact, titled simply: "The demise of Earthside Missile Base Ecology Center." 'An ungodly waste of money' This was the second time Demas had witnessed the land being abandoned. He was here when the multi-million-dollar base was built and dismantled, one of a triad of missile facilities around Beale Air Force Base – in Lincoln, Chico and Live Oak. Each were now expensive casualties of the Cold War arms race. In a follow-up story in 1990, Demas was quoted as calling the bases "an ungodly waste of money." He doesn't remember saying that and today offers a more philosophical attitude. "Technology today changes so quickly. How do you know? I'm not a foreseer." He went down into the underground compound twice. The first time was when it was still an active base and Rotary Club members were given a tour. "I thought it was kind of sophisticated," he said. "At the time, it was all digital. It was very clean, very organized ... they even opened the launch doors just to show us but they didn't bring a missile up. It was all very interesting." The second time was after it had been decommissioned and was being dismantled. "It was just a mess," he said. "I didn't stay. They were taking all the wiring out and all the equipment out. I just kind of walked in and walked out. I didn't want to walk through it." Leslie Stevens died in 1998. His obituary in Variety magazine listed his many accomplishments on stage, film and television. There was no mention of Earthside. That same decade, trichloroethylene (TCE) had been discovered in the groundwater on the former missile base property, left behind from when the missiles were there. TCE was a popular ingredient in cleansers and degreasers back then but was later determined to be carcinogenic. The conversation with Demas turns to the present-day efforts to clean up the TCE, and the hope that this series of stories will help people care again about this piece of Lincoln. The TCE discovery launched a decades-long push to remediate the contamination. At first, the fight was over who was responsible. Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which is in charge of this and other restoration projects at formerly used military sites across the country, has come under persistent criticism and mistrust. Chief among the complaints: being painstakingly slow because it must follow a federally mandated process for testing, evaluating and deciding on a remedy. While the USACE is finally in that remedy-seeking stage, the actual completion may still be a few years away, an estimate that angers some residents, especially those who live in a section of Sun City Lincoln Hills whose homes are nearest to the contaminated site. While the movement of underground plumes of TCE have been stable, what's going to happen if the plumes reach their property lines? Demas offers this advice to both sides – those trying to come up with a plan and those who argue it will be too little too late. "I think what people have to do is look for a remedy and develop unanimity within their ranks in order to solve the problem," he said. Put aside their differences and work together to heal the land? Then, perhaps, there just might be a happy ending after all. Sandi Dolbee is the Community Co-Chair of the Restoration Advisory Board to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the cleanup of the former missile site. Email: CommunityRAB@yahoo.com.