Re: FUTURE LAND USE COMMENTS

[Vernon Brechin <vbrechin@igc.org>]

From: Vernon Brechin <vbrechin@igc.org>

Lenny, 

This is a response to your posting on cpro.military, Topic 605, 
Oct. 3, 1996, concerning land use policy. I am making the 
following comments from a position of naivet concerning the 
fine points of the law and without fully reading your postings 
on this issue. I look at this issue from a rather pessimistic 
view point. I do support your efforts to encourage complete 
clean-ups at early stages of the conversion process. 

Questions need to be raised as to how the public can be assured 
that institutional controls will be maintained, by federal 
agencies, into the distant future. Changes in world and domestic 
situations may partly or completely negate the original, 
mission of an executive federal agency. There is no guarantee 
that the public will continue to fund a federal agency after its 
original, major purpose has been lost. The public may not want 
to fund such an agency, just so that it can continue to fulfill 
its past promises to act as a caretaker for pieces of 
contaminated property. 

Another point, is that the public should not be placed in a 
position of having to fund a obsolete agency so that it can 
continue to protect the public from the contamination that the 
agency originally created. This may serve to preserve the 
positions of bureaucratic agency fat cats in Washington, DC. 

Our system of government was designed to be highly flexible. 
Using the fear, of the spread of contamination, to preserve 
obsolete government institutions, might be seen as a process 
of hardening of the arteries of our governmental system. 
It results in a reduction of governmental flexibility. I 
believe that this is a natural process which our system of 
participatory democracy and checks-and-balances is supposed 
to counteract. 

A similar situation can be seen in the case of the promotion of 
nuclear power generation. The early promoters were able to 
secure funding, for the development of the industry, because 
they promised the electorate that they would come up with a 
solution to the disposal of the high-level nuclear waste. One 
thing the public failed to realize, is that these promoters 
were not, and could not speak for the next generation, who's 
values turned out to be different than the values of the leaders 
of the 50's and 60's. Although it is natural for parents 
to assume that their offspring will have values that are similar 
to their own, this is not, and sometimes, should not be the case. 

In conclusion, DoD and DOE clean-ups should be very thorough and 
should be funded at the earliest possible date, while the 
responsible agencies are still solvent. 

Vernon J. Brechin 

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The following letter was mailed on 10/11/96
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 October 11, 1996 
Patricia Rivers 
Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 
(Environmental Security/Cleanup) 
3400 Defense, Pentagon 
Washington, DC 20301-3400.

Dear Ms. Rivers:

The DoD has an obligation to make it clear, in its deliberations 
with members of the surrounding communities, that it is here to 
serve the public and not to intimidate them. The potential 
threat of contaminants, left during less than complete cleanup 
operations, should not be used by the military, to insure its 
role as public guardians into the distant future. 

The public would be making a serious mistake if it assumed that 
the federal agencies, which were responsible for a given 
contamination situation and a less then complete cleanup, will 
retain institutional control long after the initial contamination 
is forgotten by the general electorate. Our system of government 
is supposed to remain flexible and not be hamstrung by past 
federal practices. 

The the responsibility, of a federal agency that fails to fully 
cleanup its borrowed public property, should not be transfered 
into the relm of increasingly complex real estate documents which 
include the use of deed restrictions. Such deed restrictions may 
increase the cost of processing deeds while limiting future uses 
of the public's property. 

Clearly, this country's Founding Fathers provided us with a 
Constitution which severely limited the powers of the military. 
Allowing a system, in which the military plays a part in limiting 
future uses of public and private property, does not bode well for 
the future of American democracy. 

Base cleanups need to be done quickly and throughly so that the 
vast majority of the public's property can be freely used by 
future generations. 

Sincerely, 
Verrnon J. Brechin 

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