2007 CPEO Installation Reuse Forum Archive

From: DCatbird37@aol.com
Date: 26 Mar 2007 18:07:13 -0000
Reply: cpeo-irf
Subject: [CPEO-IRF] in solidarity with Hunter's Pt citizens against Lennar & Environmental Injustice
 
Lenny and CPEO Reuse subscribers,
  
          I wish to air my support for those California citizens who are making a stand against the injustice being perpetrated across this country by our government joining forces with big business to promote irresponsible redevelopment practices in regards to the proper environmental cleanup of former military bases.
 
          The Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) process, that long ago was put in place to provide former host communities guidance in redevelopment strategy, and environmental remediation in cleanup of military released toxins, has been irresponsibly lessened. No longer are the protection of public health, and restoration of natural resources top priorities in BRAC process.
 
          Our Department of Defense under the George W. Bush administration has concluded that their funds are much better spent poured into an Iraqi civil war, brought on in large part by a morally misguided invasion, than the just, but equally expensive task of cleaning up the toxic legacy of military exercise on their own shores. 
 
          The deferral of CERCLA law, through "Early Transfer" Covenant Deferral Requests, and further privatization of the BRAC, has here at the former South Weymouth(Ma) Naval Air Station, at Hunter's Point, as well as closed bases across the country, proposes that the public health of former host communities, is responsibly protected by certain developers and their contractors, such as Lennar and CH2M Hill, who are presented with the deferred cleanup as part of their redevelopment.
 
          How can the cleanup of military contamination be construed as responsibly complete, if we are asked to accept the word of a private developer, who's main objective, as with any big business, would be to maximize profits?
 
 
          As the citizens around Hunter's Point, I have a serious concern with airborne contamination being released via the destruction and crushing of military buildings and runways in my neighborhood. It is my contention that the public health is in some jeopardy by airborne asbestos and the distinct possibility that metal-laced flyash was used as a component of runway construction.
 
          The Navy, and long-involved regulators( federal EPA, state DEP) have been removed from this "solid waste" process, and we citizens are asked to trust Lennar, CH2M Hill, and a special solid waste office of the state, who appears less than forthcoming with any publicly released testing data. All we know thus far is the first ten feet of the North-South Runway has been crushed up, without citizens having any knowledge of toxin testing or dust control measures.
 
           An editorial by James Carroll of the Boston Globe appeared in today's newspaper.
           His incites ring so true:
 
           "The simplest truth is that the economic system that so benefits you is steadily eroding democracy by transferring the power to shape the future, both within states and among them by ever smaller elites. At the same time, wealth multiplies and concentrates itself, while impoverishing more and more human beings."
 
           The immoral privatization of BRAC and questionable practices of big businesses like Lenner, I clearly see as impoverishing the public health of those of us living in proximity to these highly polluted former military bases.
           Our further impoverishment, our very rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, are regarded as secondary concerns to our government's financially pushed politics.
 
           How the government is allowing the Department of Defense to shirk their moral responsibilities to the environmental health of their former host communities is astounding.
           The moral degradation of our leadership in the world is the greatest of tragedies.
 
 
           One political scandal after the next haunts America.
 
           The latest haunts me the most.
           The federal Department of Justice fires a number of attorneys, many say for strictly political reasons.
           President Bush and Attorney General Gonzalez cite that as preposterous, reiterating that the firings were strictly performance related.
 
           Makes me wonder...
           I've always wondered how Lennar, the locally appointed Redevelopment Board(SSTTDC),and informed and engaged politicians have been able to completely ignore scores of my inquiries into well-founded public health concerns on and around the former air station.
 
           You wonder what influence a development company could politically wield?
 
           It's true the Florida-based developer was said to be instrumental in luring pharmaceutical big business to Govenor Jeb Bush's state.
           Lennar did next expand to Texas.
           I haven't heard whether G.W.Bush prior to his presidential run, received any like assistance, but it makes you wonder.
           Time and again, I hear Lennar linked to former military base redevelopments.
           Time and again, I hear about lawsuits, but never hear about resolutions.
 
           Getting back to the fired U.S. attorneys,
           One in particular caught my attention.
           U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired for stated job incompetence.
 
           Carol Lam was instrumental in making the well-publicized case against Randall "Duke" Cunningham.
 
           In 2006, Atty. Lam began investigating a case against Republican Congressman Jerry Lewis. Her dismissal shelves that case.
           It's been reported that Congressman Lewis is under investigation for receiving $110,000 from a powerful Hedge Fund, Cerberus Capital Management, LP, soon before, as sitting Head of the Congressional Defense Appropriation Sub-Committee, he restored full funding for a contract previously awarded to MCI, that had been reduced due to cited mismanagement and cost overruns.
 
           MCI, is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, thus making the $110,000 received by Congressman Lewis, highly questionable.
 
           The chairman of the board of Cerberus Capital Management is John W. Snow ( George W.Bush's 2nd Secretary of the Treasury.
 
           Why this concerns me here and now, because Cerberus Capital Management also owns a majority of shares in Riley Property Holdings which just bought LNR Property Corp ( Lennar Partners parent company.
           I'm sure enough lawyers were involved here to make all these business dealings legal in every way, but I question the morality of it all.  
 
           Does the thickness of the Political/Financial web, explain why on a local level environmental justice is impossible?
           Do the politically empowered elite doom Justice for All?
 
                                        God guide us,
                                                           David Wilmot, Abington, Ma.
 
            
 




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