From: | Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org> |
Date: | Fri, 07 Jun 1996 23:13:05 -0700 (PDT) |
Reply: | cpeo-military |
Subject: | WATERTOWN COMPROMISE |
From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org> WATERTOWN COMPROMISE As much as possible, we see this newsgroup as an opportunity to report successes and challenges in the community oversight of military cleanup programs. We recently received the following testimony, delivered at a May 13, 1996 public hearing on a proposed cleanup plan in the Boston area. It describes a compromise reached between the Army and the local community. The compromise has broad, but definitely not unanimous local support. Lenny Siegel TESTIMONY OF SUSAN FALKOFF My name is Susan Falkoff. For the past 9 years, working for a thorough evaluation and cleanup of the Watertown Arsenal has been an important part of my life. I have worn a number of different hats in my efforts. I have worked as a member of Watertown Citizens for Environmental Safety, as the WCES representative to the Reuse Committee, as the chair of the Environmental Subcommittee of the Reuse Committee and as the community co-chair of the Restoration Advisory Board. My work and the hard work of many others will soon culminate in the Record of Decision which will incorporate the comments you are hearing tonight on the proposed plan for the outdoor remediation of this site. During these years, I have seen the military's respect for the interests of citizens of affected communities grow, and so my comments tonight are not in response to a work which was completed in isolation but one which resulted from a long collaboration between the defense department, the regulators, the members of the community and our elected officials. In this regard, I want to particularly mention the invaluable help the community has received from Representative Joe Kennedy in our negotiations with the Pentagon and also the determined intervention of our State Senator, Warren Tolman in our dealings with the state. At Restoration Advisory Board meetings, Army and regulatory officials have spent many hours listening to and communicating with citizens about methods of cleaning contaminated soil. It took several revisions of this Proposed Plan for the Army to explain clearly its rationale for choosing the method they have (chemical oxidation) but in the Proposed Plan we are commenting on tonight, I do believe the explanation is clear and adequate and I believe that this method of remediation is a sensible and appropriate one, and that the backup method of offsite disposal is a realistic second choice. Identifying an appropriate level of cleanup has been much more controversial. When the community began its discussions with the Army, pristine cleanup was our goal. At one early meeting, I stated, "Why don't you just assume we want to build a really big day care center?" The problem with that stance was that no one in town really believed this was the best reuse for this historic site. We also came to realize that once something is broken you can fix it but it will never be exactly the same, and the land could never really be returned to a pristine state. We gradually modified our requests to the more technically acceptable language, "for unrestricted reuse" and for a long time, the community was united around this goal. For some, it remains a goal which should not be compromised, and I respect them for stating forcefully their case. In the meantime, however, the Army has developed guidance for cleaning sites to the intended reuse as stated in a reuse plan. This has not sat well with a community that developed a reuse plan as a goal but wanted very much the flexibility to adjust to new ideas and changing economic realities, which could potentially include more housing. In time, our thinking evolved further, to question whether the flexibility to develop the entire site for housing really was necessary. Some members of WCES, while doggedly pursuing unrestricted reuse, have long questioned building residential units in areas where depleted uranium was burned, no matter how high the standards used for defining cleanup. With this is mind, for the last several months I have given much thought to which aspects of the cleanup really mattered most of me. For safety, aesthetic, and logical reasons, it was clear to me that all the green areas visible from the Commander's Mansion should be available for unrestricted use. Housing maybe, day care, maybe, university classrooms, perhaps, summer camp programs for youth - anything. This lovely area, overlooking the Charles River, should not be carved up. It clearly operates from a landscaping point of view as a single entity, regardless of the way it is carved out in the Reuse Plan. Fortunately, the Army has heard this request, deemed it reasonable and feasible, and on April 29 Colonel Blose came from the Pentagon to a Reuse Committee meeting to announce that there would be an addendum to the Record of Decision in which the current Proposed Plan is modified to include the cleanup to residential standards of the Areas called "F" and "T." With this change, the community has achieved the goal of restoring the green areas for safe, unrestricted future use. The consensus of the committee that night was that, with this change, the Proposed Plan is fully satisfactory. On behalf of the community, I thanked Colonel Blose for this change at the April 29 meeting of the Reuse Committee, and I would like to do so again tonight for the public record. With the change presented by Colonel Blose, I am satisfied with the Proposed Plan. I believe it will protect the safety of users, abutters and trespassers on this property to the extent possible by technical and scientific standards as we understand today. I also would like to go on record as specifically grateful to the technical assistance program of EPA, without which I would not be able to state these opinions with the level of confidence I feel tonight. I thank you for the opportunity to make these remarks, and I look forward to continued collaboration with military officials and state and federal regulators as we move forward on the actual cleanup and development of the site. | |
Prev by Date: LOCKHEED MARTIN ENVIRONMENTAL Next by Date: Alert on Chemical Weapons disposal | |
Prev by Thread: LOCKHEED MARTIN ENVIRONMENTAL Next by Thread: Alert on Chemical Weapons disposal |