From: | Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org> |
Date: | Tue, 29 Oct 1996 12:39:20 -0800 (PST) |
Reply: | cpeo-military |
Subject: | ICMA ON FUTURE LAND USE |
From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org> ICMA ON DEFENSE'S DRAFT FUTURE LAND USE POLICY The International City/County Management Association (ICMA), a leading voice for U.S. local governments on issues pertaining to military base cleanup and reuse, has submitted comments to the Defense Department (DoD) on its draft policy on Future Land Use. ICMA considers the draft policy a step in the right direction, but it wants it to go further. First, ICMA seeks the addition of two statements that it says were included in a recent presentation by a DoD official: "First, that the services should never require a community accept property cleaned up to risk based levels unless the community, through an informed decision making process, accepts the level of cleanup. Second, that each community should be able to negotiate with the service to delineate when and if the service would return to the property after transfer to perform additional cleanup." Second, ICMA wants DoD and the service branches to "develop a procedure to ensure that local governments affected by a base closure are involved in the future use and institutional control development decision process from the beginning. This is especially important if the local government which will be responsible for institutional control implementation is not a member of the LRA [local reuse authority]." Furthermore, ICMA lists seven additional points that it believes DoD should address in the Future Land Use Policy. "1) What is DoD's policy to ensure that local communities and LRAs are not forced by the services to accept property cleaned up to future use levels with institutional controls when they want the property cleaned up to unrestricted use? If the local community decides that property should be cleaned up to background levels, how will DoD guarantee that the service branches will carry out the remediation process as quickly and effectively as possible. 2) What party is responsible for additional cleanup if the institutional control on a site fails? Does failure of the control constitute a failure of the remedy? 3) What party determines if the initial cleanup remedy fails? 4) What is the policy for determining which party is required to prove that additional contamination, caused by DoD, has been discovered on a site? 5) If a party would like to remove a deed or other restrictions from the property, who determines the adequacy of the demonstration? What is DoD's incentive to remove deed restrictions once a transfer has occurred? 6) Is DoD's sovereign immunity waived once DoD transfers the property to another party? 7) Will the individual armed services adopt the policy, as stated, and add language to transfer agreements specifically stating when that service branch will return to perform additional remediation at a site?" | |
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