TAG SUCCESS STORY

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>

SUCCESSFUL TAG IN PALO ALTO

The Barron Park Association Foundation (BPAF), formed by a 
neighborhood group to manage the EPA Technical Assistance Grant at 
a private cleanup site in Palo Alto, California, issue its Final Project 
Report in December, 1995. The 40-page report, available from the 
Foundation at 3589 Laguna Ave., Suite #1, Palo Alto, CA 94306, 
illustrates one way in which all parties to a cleanup can benefit from 
empowered public participation. The site, 1501 Page Mill Road, is 
operated by the Hewlett-Packard Corporation.

BPAF believes that regular working group meetings were key to the 
effectiveness of its participation: "A major advance in the process 
occurred when BPAF, H-P [Hewlett-Packard], and the RWQCB 
[Regional Water Quality Control Board, the lead regulatory agency] 
agreed to hold monthly meetings at H-P headquarters to review and 
discuss events and activities in a timely fashion." When the workload 
lightened, they moved to less frequent meetings. BPAF's technical 
consultants attended as necessary.

BPAF took the lead in producing three fact sheets on the cleanup, all 
of which were distributed to 10,000 households as an insert in the 
local weekly newspaper. On several occasions, BPAF helped the 
responsible parties obtain city approval for their plans.

The report observes: "It was very interesting to discover that everyone 
was willing to work together collaboratively, since the normal 
assumption is that industry and community are at odds when 
discussing environmental impacts and especially contamination 
cleanup.

The report neglects to mention one significant fact: the Foundation 
only spent about $31,000 of its $42,000 grant. It returned the rest to 
EPA.