Re: Pu in the park

[Jim Knipp <jknipp@usit.net>]

Steve Huff, in his response to Marianne, stated that the last 5% of
cleanup at a site is by far the greatest cost per % than the cleanup of
higher levels at the site, and "...we are far better off spending the
money ... on the highest actual risk first ...". This approach, although
argueably sound, assumes that "we" are making this decision, and that the
money expended is being focused toward the highest actual risk. In fact,
"we" don't make the decisions (the DoD does for military sites), and
unfortunately their interests are directed more to cosmetics than to risk
reduction. The Army Materiel Command (a major subordinate command of the
Army} has some 10-20 contaminated installations; their recently-announced
"Buy-Out Strategy" is to focus their FY2000 funding on projects that can
be completed within the next five years, and delay the funding on high
risk long lead-time cleanup (even though the Army funding for active sites
has increased, not decreased). At the Milan (TN) Army Ammunition Plant
this means that cleanup of the massive contamination that has crossed the
installation boundary and underlies the City of Milan will be delayed for
at least 5 years (although, they admit, this may well extend to 50 years).
The message here is the Army's concern for "body count" is in terms of
projects completed at the expense of cleanup that is greater and is
increasing off the installation. The concentrations here are clearly
"above action level". It seems that legal action, although deplorable, may
well be the only recourse both of Milan residents and others similarly
situated. It is clear that the term "we", as seeking a common goal with
DoD, is, in most cases, inappropriate; the DoD takes an obvious
adversarial position, and the citizens affected may well have to recognize
this and respond accordingly.

Jim Knipp