Response to Military Attitudes Towards Environmental Clean-up

["Theodore J. Henry" <thenry@umabnet.ab.umd.edu>]

In Response to Susan Gawarecki's comments:

I have worked as the technical consultant for a citizens group in Harford
County for 4 years, and can truly state that many of the feelings of
the community members I have met are well justified.

I should also apologize for typos ahead of time, and for the length.

I should state at the beginning that yes there are many people at military
installations who do care about environmental clean-up and work hard - no
doubt. I have met with the Commanding General at APG before and I thought
he did support the clean-up effort and citizens involvement.
Unfortunately, he became a casualty of the Sex problems, so once again,
the community must start over with the next one. Having to deal with
rotating commanders and tenant bases where internal communication and
cooperation is poor is no small problem for the community - and I think
this is what needs to be remembered. Judgements, lack of trust, etc by
the community is based on experience and getting burned, not so much
outlandish emotion or unsupported assessments of military actions.

I do agree with Susan that technology is limiting at time, and at APG a
waivers of impracticability have been used. When Susan mentions no
receptors or risks to populations I must say that there are times where
this is true, yet there are many cases (i.e. range fires) where military
and state people alike will tell the community that there are no risks to
be concerned about, without having one air sample to support such an
assessment. Communities do know that it is certainly easy not to find
completed exposure pathways if one is not doing appropriate sampling.

Yes there have been successes, and I think many active citizens will state
just that, but at the same time the communities have many decades of
contamination to deal with and few years of successes to offer hope.

I do not want to ramble, but lets look at a few examples of my
experiences to put our successes at APG in perspective:

*I found a contractor using median instead of mean values of sediment
concentrations to drastically reduce the presented level of contamination

*We spent 6 months meeting with APG and EPA officials to get the IRP to
tell the RAB about an area of groundwater flowing off-post, and then found
internal APG meeting minutes where IRP employees told the AEC about this
area 2 months before we even started our fight to get the information
presented. Figures prepared by the contractor ignored data points
indicating the existence of such an area, and presented arrows showing
all groundwater flow in more "rosey" directions. The presentation of
"rosey" information has always been one of the military's greatest
downfalls. By the way, I wrote a document outlining this entire incident
but received nothing more than a typical response from APG level
individuals admitting no wrong doing and concentrating on less than major
points in the document. Note to other community groups, if a presenter
repeatedly concentrates on general groundwater flow, one might want to
assess the potential for localized areas to be going in a less favorable
direction. By the way, this localized area of revers flow was responsible
for a TCE plume leaving the post.

*In 1994, a mustard round was identified as a high explosive round and
open detonated, releasing 11 pounds of mustard to the environment. There
was an investigative board that mentioned dozens of concerns and
recommendations, but no formal presentation was given to the RAB on what
changes were made at APG based on the investigation. A request for 
such a
presentation was justified given the future UXO removals that will take
place, not to mention the rounds found now. Despite requests to the Chief
of the IRP, the Director of DSHE, the Commanding General of APG, the
Chairman of the DDESB, and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Installations, Logistics and Environment, nothing has ever been done and
this situation continues.

*Lastly, the community around APG has been involved with the Nike Site and
planned CWM removal there for 4 years. Despite tons of meetings and
requests a survey of 1400 homes just took place as part of a larger
effort to inform and educate the community for the upcoming removal, yet
this effort in the community bypassed the RAB, the TAG group and active
members of the community. So why some military individuals care about
environmental clean-up, just as many think they should be able to do as
they see fit without including the community.

While I have many more examples, I think this shows why those on the
community side of the fence become frustrated. And I should note my
previous message on the e-mail about the requests for necessary funds
based on Pentagon policy as support for why many think the military is
choosing not to clean-up. APG will not meet the goal of 50% clean-up of
high priority sites by 2002.

Environmental clean-up without the community at the decision making table
will never be sufficient. I think people are no longer interested in
Blind Faith, a term used by Gary Vest in a presentation last year. People
want to see the data and participate in the decisions since they must live
with the results. When it comes to protecting the nation, I believe a
majority of the public trusts the military to do so, when it comes to the
environment they do not, and they should not. That is the job of the EPA,
the states, and the local citizens.

The community wants to trust the military and are more than willing to
work and make sacrifices, but such experiences clearly indicate the
community must be cautious and meticulous.

Of course, if someone thinks anything I said may misrepresent an issue
believed by many citizens working or volunteering in this arena, please
let me know - we can never stop learning and delineating the points.

 Sincerely

Ted Henry