Petersburg Pilot -

PETERSBURG (AP) — A federal contractor is removing soil contaminated by fuel and debris at a Cold War mountaintop radio site near Petersburg.

The Kupreanof Island site was a manned U.S. Air Force communications station, one of 18 built in Alaska in the 1950s that were part of an early warning system to relay radio communications to Colorado Springs during the Cold War. It was deactivated in 1976, and the Air Force removed more than 100 old fuel barrels from the area in 2000. But fuel drums, rubble, trash and chemical contaminants still remain.

An Air Force contractor has documented fuel,...