Re: Who is using this Newsgroup?

olah@speagle.com
06 Oct 1997 10:16:15

From: Laura Olah <olah@speagle.com>

Hi! I am Laura Olah, Executive Director and co-founder of Citizens for
Safe Water Around Badger. CSWAB was organized in 1990 when the rural
communities near Badger Army Ammunition Plant learned private drinking
water wells were polluted with high levels of cancer-causing chemicals.

Environmental cleanup of Wisconsin's Badger Army Ammunition Plant is
expected to exceed $250 million, making it one of the most expensive
Department of Defense cleanups in the nation. Thirty-two (32) areas
within the plant are polluted with high levels of solvents, toxic metals
and explosive wastes. Groundwater beneath the plant is saturated with
cancer-causing chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride,
trichloroethylene and dinitrotoluenes. The founders believed community
involvement could have prevented this tragedy and consequently organized
CSWAB both to empower and to protect nearby residents and plant workers
from further harm.

On September 18, 1996 Olin Corporation and US Army held a public meeting
to announce the completion of a Strategic Plan for reindustrialization
of the 7,400-acre Badger plant under the federal Armament Retooling and
Support Act (ARMS). The development of the strategic plan for reuse of
the inactive Badger plant was done without cooperation or consultation
with nearby communities and excluded local town, village and county
boards, planning and zoning authorities, and other stakeholders. During
the entire nine-month planning process -- costing $275,000 taxpayer
dollars -- there were no public meetings.

Given this unilateral, presumptive approach, it is not surprising that
an international chemical company like Olin Corporation developed a
reuse plan narrowly confined to heavy, chemical industry -- a proposal
completely incompatible and contrary to land use in the nearby
communities. Olin's plans are to initiate an aggressive marketing
scheme, again subsidized with federal taxdollars, to bring pulp & paper
industry, varnish, paint and lacquer manufacturers, ethanol and
cosmetics industries, and nitrogenous fertilizer plants to our rural
community.

Long-term goals of the community are to close the Badger Army Ammunition
Plant as a military installation and to restore the biological diversity
and biotic communities on the prairie now occupied by Badger. This year
the group will work to establish an immediate moratorium on
reindustrialization activities related to the Badger plant, coordinate a
community-based reuse authority to empower community members in the
decision-making process, and organize community support for a
comprehensive Environmental Impact Study and compliance with local
planning and zoning authority.

CSWAB sustains a strong, viable program that has enabled the group to
receive both statewide and national recognition for its environmental
justice work. CSWAB serves on several national panels, including the
Community Involvement Advisory Group of the National ARMS Task Force,
the Department of Energy's Tribal and Stakeholders' Working Group, the
Sierra Club's national Federal Facilities Task Force, and the Steering
Committee for the Conventional Munitions Network of the Military Toxics
Project. CSWAB has been invited to speak at national events including
the 1995 Green Cross USA Conference on Military Toxics held in
Washington, DC. and the July 8, 1996 meeting of the Presidential
Advisory Committee for Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses.

-- Laura Olah, Executive Director
Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger
E12629 Weigand's Bay SouthMerrimac, Wisconsin  53561
olah@speagle.comPhone (608)643-3124 Fax (608)643-0005
Website  http://www.speagle.com/cswab