EPA Chicago Conference Excludes Stakeholders

["Laura Olah" <olah@speagle.com>]

Aimee,
Please post. No response from EPA as of July 12. THANKS!
Laura

Lee J. Regner 
Federal Facilities Coordinator 
USEPA/Region 5 
77 West Jackson Boulevard 
Chicago, IL 60604-3590 

June 27, 1997

Dear Mr./Ms. Regner: 

As representatives of national, regional and local organizations 
involved in the prevention and remediation of federal facilities 
pollution problems, we were pleased to learn that EPA is convening 
"Federal Facilities Conference 1997" July 29-30 in Chicago. Imagine our 
disappointment upon finding no mention of organizations like ours or the 
people we represent in the conference brochure. 

We are not listed among the "WHO?" should attend. None of the speakers 
listed are from environmental or community groups active on federal 
facilities issues. No mention is made of financial assistance for 
participation by affected citizens who will be unable to participate 
without assistance. 

It almost seems as if EPA/Region 5 believes that these issues can and 
should be discussed, perhaps even resolved, without the people most 
directly affected -- those who live near polluted and polluting federal 
facilities, those who will have to live with the consequences of the 
decisions that EPA officials and facility managers make long after the 
"decision-makers" have moved on. 

We sincerely hope that the problem is with the brochure, not the 
conference plan. Some of us (and many others, including high-ranking 
officials at EPA and DOD) have spent years trying to build the kind of 
trust and openness that real solutions demand. If the intended audience 
is as narrow and the agenda as limited as the brochure suggests, this 
conference would represent a giant step backward for the cause of 
effective and expedited performance improvement at federal facilities. 

If our worst fears are true and the conference plan is as misdirected 
and inappropriate as the brochure suggests, if plans are not in place to 
assure active participation in "Federal Facilities Conference 1997" by 
affected citizens, then we regretfully but firmly request that the 
conference be postponed until a later date. A maldesigned federal 
facilities conference, sponsored by EPA, endorsed at least implicitly by 
DOD, would be a completely inappropriate expenditure of taxpayers' 
dollars and a major setback for efforts to build trust and cooperation. 

A postponement would allow time for the development of a more 
appropriate agenda and for assuring more balanced participation and the 
kind of constructive dialogue that must occur if real solutions to 
federal facilities problems are to be implemented. 

We look forward to hearing from you in the very near future. Please 
direct replies, at a minimum, to Laura Olah, Executive Director for Safe 
Water Around Badger and a member of the Military Toxics Project's Board 
and the Sierra Club's national Federal Facilities Task Force. She will 
communicate with the rest of us as necessary. Feel free, of course, to 
send replies to us all. 

Sincerely, 

Laura Olah, Executive Director
Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger 
E12629 Weigand's Bay South 
Merrimac, WI 53561 
608-643-3124 
608-643-0005(Fax) 
olah@speagle.com 

Ross Vincent, Chair 
Environmental Quality Strategy Team 
Sierra Club 
P.O. Box 4375 
Pueblo, CO 81003 

Dick Smith
Citizens for Responsible Fort McCoy Growth
Route 4, Box 290A
Sparta, WI 54656

Charlie Cray 
Green Peace/Great Lakes Regional Office
Green Peace Toxics Campaign
847 West Jackson
Chicago, IL 60607

Mark Donham, President 
Regional Association of Concerned Environmentalists (RACE)
RR # 1, Box 308
Brookport, IL 62910

Jeff Cefali 
PAHLS 
102 Morgan Blvd 
Valparaiso, IN 46383 

Edward McGlinn 
Anglers of the Ausable
29933 Barwell
Farmington Hills, MI 48334

Dan L. Alstott, President/CEO 
The AuSable Manistee Action Council 
6726 Hawthorn Trail
Grayling, MI 49738

Vina Colley 
Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security 
(PRESS)
3706 McDermott Pond Creek
McDermott, OH 45652

Ralph Hutchison
Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance
100 Tulsa Rd. Suite 4A
Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Mark Woodall, Acting Chair 
Waste Committee 
Sierra Club 
P.O. Box 185 
Woodland, GA 31836 

Rick Skillin, Chair 
Federal Facilities Task Force 
Sierra Club 
634-1/2 N. First Street 
Lompoc, CA 93436-4712 

Susan Patton, Chair 
Midwest Regional Conservation Committee 
Sierra Club 
4956 Prichard Lane 
Independence, KY 41051 

Cathy Lemar, Executive Director 
Military Toxics Project 
471 Main Street, 2nd Floor 
Lewiston, ME 04240 

Susan Gordon, Director
Military Production Network 
1914 N 34th, Suite 407
Seattle, Washington 98103

Mary Olson
Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS)
1424 16th St. NW Suite 404 
Washington, DC 20036

xc: Carol Browner, Administrator, EPA 
Timothy Fields Jr., Deputy Assistant Administrator, EPA/OSWER 
David A. Ulrich, Acting Regional Administrator, EPA/Region 5 
Sherri Wasserman Goodman, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (ES) 
Gary D. Vest, Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (ES) 
Thomas L. McCall Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary/Air Force 
Elsie Munsell, Deputy Assistant Secretary/Navy 
Raymond Fatz, [Army]