Housing + UXO in Benicia

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[The following comes from a community group in the Bay Area city of
Benicia, where a developer, Granite Management, is planning to build
housing on a portion of the former Benicia Arsenal where live ordnance
has been found. Recently, to expedite the project, the city of Benicia
agrees to take over lead project status from the Army Corps of Engineers
(ACE), with Granite agreeing to pay for remediation costs. This group is
primarily concerned about the safety of the planned housing project.]


Hello, Lenny!     

We all thank you for going out of your way to come to Benicia to meet
with us last Wednesday nite.Your experience is crucial for us. Thanks
for being so willing to help us out via this message relaying and
putting us on-line. 

    We've been discussing what the best approach might be get the City 
as lead agency to provide a public participation program for the
'Tourtelot' property test site, slated for housing. We have tentatively
come up with an acronym P.A.C.T., standing for  Public Advisory
Committee on Tourtelot, which I will use for our steering committee, for
now. Here are a few more questions. We have several questions: 

 1.   If NEPA and CERCLA cover federally funded projects, does they
apply to a project privately funded under the "Support  For Others"
Program, which is, nevertheless, a project to clean-up UXO and HTRW from
once federally-leased lands? Granite Management (owned by FORD Motor Co.
credit division), is the developer and is very clever about getting
exactly the kind of agreements that suit them.  I've noticed in the
agreement signed between the City and Granite, that Granite will make
funds available as required in a timely manner, for work done by the
Army Corps. In the agreement, Granite  foresees discrepancies in
judgments about work to be performed, and how they will deal with such
discretionary issues' funding. Under the agreements, if ACE advises the
City to do something extra in the remediation that is not part of the
original work plan or estimated costs, Granite can effectively hold up
the proposed supplemental work, since they control the flow of money to
ACE. (via the City, whom they also control). The Army Corps' separate
agreeement with the City stipulates that the Army shall not use any of
its own money for the project costs as they come up; that is, the Army
will not pay for costs (estimated or extra) and then seek reimbursement
from the City (Granite pays the City, City pays ACE.)  This funding
strategy gets around the NEPA trigger, doesn't it? 

This approach was probably master-minded by attorney Margaret Dolbaum of
Folger-Levin in S.F.who advises Granite's chief counsel, Scott
MacKinlay, who then manages to convince our city of the efficacy of
their ordering of business.  (I understand that Folger-Levin is a
nationally recognized firm that deals mainly in  liability cases, where
their job is to limit the damages and settlements, etc. for corporations
where there is clear evidence of the offending polluters' lack of
compliance with regulations, etc, andtheir obvious responsibility for
the problem. Folger-Levin was involved for years in the defense of major
polluters, against the state, in the reknown "Stringfellow Acid Pits"
case. We're up against very big forces here, once again. 

For the record, If anyone reading this knows of any other
F.U.D.S.properties or other contaminated properties owned by "Granite
Management" or  Ford Motor's other portfolio entities, please let me
know.       

2.    We're still anxious to know more about the "Support For Others"
Program, and how often it's being used to remediate former military
testing sites for residential end-use. Jim Taylor at ACE Sacramento,
said he will try to find out for us, but maybe you can get the info more
easily. 

3.    What is the  proper wording for petitions for a Restoration
Advisory Board?  We are going to call for a R.A.B. for the entire
Arsenal project, but want to get everything right. Do you have a sample
petition you could either FAX or attach to e-mail? 

This is all for now. Thank you for putting me on your e-mail cpeo
mailing list. The entries and dialogues could be very useful. I hope
you'll post this, just to let others know we're up and running. 

Marilyn Bardet  (Friends of Rose Drive)  
also (P.A.C.T.)  
Tel/FAX (707)-745-9094  
<mjbardet@earthlink.net>       



-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org
(PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE PHASING OUT
MY OLD E-MAIL ADDRESS: lsiegel@igc.org)
http://www.cpeo.org