Re: OTIS AFB AND CRANBERRIES

["Richard Hugus" <rhugus@cape.com>]

Lenny,

There is a story behind the story you posted from Reuters about Cape Cod
cranberries polluted by groundwater plumes from the Massaachusetts Military
Reservation. Two Installation Restoration program sites--FS-28 and FS-1 (FS
stands for "fuel spill") have been intentionlly neglected by the National
Guard Bureau and its contractors for years--enough so to lead us now to
call it a coverup and demand an investigation. At FS-1 up to 6 million
gallons of aviation fuel were dumped intentionally on an aircraft runway
during the '60's, not more than a half mile from the Quashnet River Valley
in Mashpee. Several times the NGB tried to walk away from the
investigation. Because of citizen oversight--namely, Joel Feigenbaum, Jamie
Kinney, and myself--they weren't allowed to.

The issue of Pentagon compensation for damages is an important one, with
national repercussions. In short, the Pentagon is avoiding it here at all
costs in oredr to prevent a precedent which would open up claims from
people near bases all over the country. The military have put up huge
resistance to compensating cranberry growers here whose crops have been
contaminated by EDB (ethylene dibromide). Compensation to non-business
interests, namely residents of the Upper Cape seeking damages for lost
water supplies and lost property values, has not been forthcoming. In
keeping with our country's philosophy that business rules, elected
officials have gone to bat for what amonts to three cranberry growers, all
of them well off already, and done nothing to help regualar people owning
houses in the affected areas. A small delegation just returned from
Washington.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is seeking payment from the Pentagon for
natural resource damages, and the Pentagon, via Tad McCall, is
stonewalling, saying Massachusetts must pay as well--an insidious argument
given that the MMR was run under federal prerogatives.

Ocean Spray has been buying cranberries from growers on Upper Cape Cod
which have probably been contaminated for years. This isn't something
that's likely to go out through the mainstream press. People familiar with
the situation here would no more eat cranberries grown here than drink the
water. The Massachusetts Military Reservation has contaminated water
supplies, rivers, and wetlands for miles around. Low levels of
contamination from the base are even reaching the Atlantic Ocean in
Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound.

Some of this news is available online at the Cape Cod Times
website--capecodonline.