Re: DoD Future Land Use

["Mervyn Tano" <mervtano@msn.com>]

Lenny:

The present way "restricted use" land is transferred from DOD hands to new
owners satisfies very few people. Unless the prospective owner(s) is/are
willing to foot future cleanup bills or is/are willing to put into 
place the mechanisms to restrict the future use of the land, DOD will not 
transfer the land.

Let me say that I fully understand the DOD's position. They are doing the
same thing that United Airlines has done by aging its frequent flier
accounts--instituting some degree of finality--as opposed to having a huge
unfunded, contingent liability hanging over its head. My sense is that the
issue for the DOD is not one of cost of the cleanup to permit future
unrestricted uses of DOD land, but the uncertainty of those costs and the
uncertainty as to when these costs will be incurred.

Members of affected communities are reacting logically by insisting on
immediate cleanup to unrestricted use standards much in the way I have taken
trips to France on United--if I don't do it now (even if I really can't 
afford it), I may never be able to do it at all.

I still think that what the United States needs is a different statutory
regime that establishes an agency, perhaps within the Department of Interior
or General Services Administration, which could receive restricted use lands
from the Department of Defense or Department of Energy or other executive
agency and administer those lands as trustee in trust to the American public.

The agency would be charged with the cleanup and management of those
restricted use lands--including, but not limited to, transferring land to
private, state, tribal or local government interests, leasing such 
lands and providing monitoring and security. DOD, DOE, et al would be 
charged a 
one-time transfer fee and be forever shed of any responsibility for 
future cleanup.
Obviously I see a RAB-like community participation/oversight mechanism in
place at each site.

I raised this at one of our FFERDC meetings on future land use and was 
greeted with a profound silence. Does this make any sense? Input requested.