CSWAB Press Release

[Laura Olah <olah@speagle.com>]

Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger
E12629 Weigand's Bay South  Merrimac, WI  53561   (608) 643-3124

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  August 27, 1999
For more information, contact:  Laura Olah, Executive Director, (608)
643-3124

ARMY DENIES ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS:
Community members want to know why

SAUK PRAIRIE  This week, the Army released 5 pages and withheld the
remaining 117 pages of documents the military claims are not releasable
despite a year-long battle to gain public access to information about
environmental conditions at the now defunct Badger Army Ammunition Plant.

The withheld documents were generated as part of Badger's Environmental
Baseline Survey (EBS), first published in August 1998 by Plexus Scientific
Corporation of Silver Spring, Maryland.  The original Plexus report,
released only internally to Army officials, was rejected by the military as
factually incorrect; a revised version of the report was released to the
public seven months later in March 1999.

The initial request for the original study from Citizens for Safe Water
Around Badger (CSWAB) was denied by the U.S. Department of Army in December
of last year.  The Army claimed the report was in draft form and would not
be available to the public until it was coordinated and finalized.

Several months later, with the help of Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, CSWAB
submitted a Freedom of Information (FOIA) Request for all records pertaining
directly or indirectly to revisions of Badger's August 1998 Environmental
Baseline Survey.

The Army's most recent response, a letter dated August 18, says releasing
correspondence between the Army and their contractors would discourage
open, frank discussions on policy matters.

The Army blocked the release of the original report, revisions were made,
and an edited version was released to the public, said Laura Olah,
Executive Director of CSWAB.  It's pretty simple what we want; we want to
know what was in the original report.  We want to know what the Army
doesn't want us to see.

The Badger plant is located near the city of Baraboo and was constructed
during the 1940s for the nation's World War II effort.  Its mission was to
manufacture single- and double-base propellant and intermediate chemicals.
The property currently covers 7,354 acres; approximately 1,400 buildings
remain.

The Army has determined that the facility is excess to its needs, and is in
the process of declaring it so; the EBS is required as part of this process.
The report identifies site contamination, including the types and quantities
of hazardous substances on the site parcels.  In addition to known solid
waste disposal sites, potential environmental and human health concerns
identified in the EBS include water systems, pesticide/herbicide use and
storage, lead-based paint, and chemical spills.

The EBS will ultimately be used by the government to determine suitability
for transfer of properties at the closing military facility.  Several
entities, including the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the
Ho-Chunk Nation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have expressed
interest in eventually owning property now occupied by Badger.

CSWAB, a local activist organization that has been working since 1990 to get
Badger cleaned up and restored for conservation, says it will continue to
fight for this information and will appeal the Army's decision.

This a publicly funded study concerning the environmental conditions of
publicly owned lands, Olah concluded. The public has a right to this
information.

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