Re: re: BASE CLOSURE Pease Ruling

[MAlex1@aol.com]

Interesting. The Presidio was, of course, transfered on Oct. 1 to the
National Park Service. Of course that's a federal transfer, so Superfund may
not apply. Still, before the transfer took place, one of our good East Bay
advisors said that the change should be a lease, because it left the Army
unambiguously responsible for continuing cleanup. We never had a chance to
test his theory. Now the Pease judge seem to say it doesn't matter.

On 11 Dec, Lenny Siegel wrote:

>Currently, the Superfund law - which covers many sites not on the
"Superfund"
>National Priorities List - is supposed to prevent the transfer of
contaminated
>Federal property to non-Federal entities, unless, as in the case of
groundwater
>contamination, the remedy is in place and reuse and cleanup don't interfer
>with each other.

>At some sites, such as Pease, the armed service has sought to evade that
>restriction by making property available on a long-term lease. The receiver
>of the property has effective ownership, but cleanup has not taken place.

>Thus judge said the a long-term lease is equivalent to a transfer by deed,
so
>uncleaned property should not be leased (long-term).

>It's more complicated, but that's the essence, I think. If you ask a lawyer,
>you'll get a much more complicated, tentative response.