To: Secretary of Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental
Affairs
From: David Wilmot
Abington
Massachusetts resident
Date: 12-08-06
Re: Public response to DEIR 11085R proposed redevelopment of the former
South Weymouth Naval Air Station.
Mr. Secretary,
We live in perilous
times.
If the "Executive" in your
office's title, truly affords you the executive privilege to operate above the
politics that control this shortsightedness of this environmental remediation
than I am addressing the right person.
I had amassed what was
becoming reams of detailed comments aimed at concerns I have with the way things
are proceeding here, but having my Congressman and Senator continue to avoid
these much stated issues, I'll forego taking up so much of your time, and
condense my comments into one morally posed question based on the just released
"State of the Environment Report" compiled by The Environmental League of
Massachusetts as reported last month in the Boston Globe.
This report details the
steady decline of the Massachusetts Environment.
Of major concern to
me, are the recent cited studies confirming that lower income communities in the
Commonwealth bear " a grossly disproportionate share of health risks from
such sources as hazardous waste sites...".
Is the term Commonwealth
of Massachusetts a gross misnomer now?
Allowing the Department of
Defense to defer/bypass responsible health-protective remediation of the
property and waterways tainted by many decades of military exercises, prior to
transference of said properties is grossly unjust to those who have served as
host communities to the military, and those projected to take residence on these
tainted lands in the future.
Allowing the Navy and
Department of Defense to crawl away from their obligation to restore host
communities natural resources before redeveloping efforts are engaged to further
muddy the already muddy waters of environmental remediation, is a huge blow to
"The Commonwealth".
Allowing the Department of
Defense to hold such power over the Public Health in this Commonwealth is
grossly unjust. Allowing the Navy the opportunity to protect their finances over
the health of the citizens of their former host communities is morally wrong.
So much about this redevelopment
process I've followed closely for the past 8+ years is so morally
wrong.
Employing law firms and public
relation firms to construct a message that purports great gains for townspeople,
when those now-perceived financial windfalls truly represent the least
computed "cost of doing business" money allotments to communities, who have
people in most cases unknowingly accepting increased health risks for their
families, due to the watering down of responsibilities of environmental
remediation.
My friends at the Environmental
Protection Agency(EPA) will tell us that bringing on new partners will not
effect their resolve to assure health protective levels of cleanup are
enforced.
But, the fact is, the EPA has
become a federal agency incapable of keeping up with the quickly evolving
scientific discoveries that would best protect public health, as the current
administration continues to underfund their efforts.
Keeping apace with the science
that is Environmental Medicine is something the EPA is not allowed to
do, as the politics and industry lobbyists don't allow federal budgets to be
allotted justly.
Politics in place make protecting
the environment of the Commonwealth an increasingly difficult thing to do.
Congressman Delahunt and Senator Kerry gave credence to my concerns for many
years, but political decisions made have shut off any communication from
their offices.
My concerns haven't changed a
bit.
Like the stated concerns of the
aforementioned Environmental League of Massachusetts, I would like to demand
better control of toxic wastes, like those buried in the landfills behind me on
the old base. The Navy proposes to cap these military landfills, with no
sound forethought in regards to the watersheds these landfills abut.
Control capping and monitoring
efforts are not helping a recently reported Superfund site in Vermont where
five years of efforts have failed in controlling the leeching of toxins into
their watershed. Responsible control and full removal of toxic landfills
laying atop and adjacent to streams and aquifers should be federally
mandated.
Perhaps the Massachusetts EOEA could take
some measure to protect the Commonwealth on a state-wide level.
This report on the failing Massachusetts
environment also condemns our protection of the water and air quality in our
state, yet this cleanup/redevelopment plan is allowed to proceed sacrificing
water sources in water starved towns, by approving toxic landfill capping over
our acquifers, as well as, approving a largely residential redevelopment plan
that will result in increasing the poor air quality from our already
gridlocked road system.
A recent Globe editorial discussing PCB
pollution of the Housatonic River in Massachusetts explains that half of the
contamination is to be found in the floodplain and not the river bottom
itself.
This statement makes it more disconcerting
that the Navy continues to insist on basing their "Basewide Watershed
Assessment" on the statement that there is "no evidence of
any contamination that has migrated off the base". Children playing in the
backwater wetlands abutting these streams running off the base are in harms way.
And yet, the Navy sees no responsibility in protecting these children by doing
the comprehensive testing outside the base fence that is warranted.
The Navy responsibly performing any
private well testing outside the base fence is also neglected.
Perhaps the executive power of the
EOEA might better serve to protect our children?
Another recent article in the Globe
points to the newly discovered finding of a gene variation in victims
of a leukemia disease cluster outside a Naval Air Station in Nevada. The
study suggests that toxins play a role in this mutation. Down the street from
where I live, it was reported some years back that three children developed
leukemia, one of them plainly stating she had spent childhood hours playing and
splashing in what she and her neighborhood chums called "Cinnamon River". This
is the orange-flocculent filled Frenches Stream that flows lifelessly off the
base.
Our children, no doubt,
are in danger here. Might the EOEA have the executive power to curtail
future illnesses from befalling our children?
It appears our government is
realizing the error of it's ways on global warming and the Iraq War, your
attention is required to address the spiraling rises of chronic disease
incidence and subsequent rising healthcare costs in the Commonwealth.
A morally responsible cleanup of
military released toxins should be mandated by some governing power prior to
redevelopment. Anything less than that subject us here to much less than
"commonwealth".
Will you be the one to
assume responsibility Mr Secretary?
If not, who?
sincerely, David Wilmot
Abington, Massachusetts