[CPEO-MEF] EPA Orders MMR Cleanup

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Two articles on EPA's new cleanup order at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts:

(from the Cape Cod Times)

EPA will require cleanup of water, ordnance on base
The precedent-setting order will be issued on DeVillars's final day as
regional EPA head.

By JEFFREY BURT STAFF WRITER   

In his final act as the region's top environmental official, John
DeVillars today will issue an unprecedented order requiring the military
to remove unexploded munitions from Camp Edwards and to clean up the
contaminated ground water and soil at the Upper Cape base.

The order from DeVillars, who is stepping down today after six years as
regional administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency,
marks the first time the agency has ordered the military to clean up a
base and remove unexploded ordnance.

...

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/epawill7.htm



(from the Boston Globe)

EPA to order Guard to clean up Cape base
Munitions pose threat to water supply

By Scott Allen, Globe Staff, 1/7/2000 

Faced with mounting evidence that old artillery shells and other
munitions may be polluting Cape Cod's drinking water, the US
Environmental Protection Agency today will order the National Guard to
clean up its firing ranges at Massachusetts Military Reservation, a
massive job that could cost $320 million.

The order, the first time that EPA has required the cleanup of a
military firing range, puts Cape Cod at the center of a national debate
over the environmental safety of all the bullets and bombs left behind
by military training. A lawyer from Puerto Rico is traveling to Boston
next week to see whether the EPA strategy could be used to block Navy
bombing exercises there.

EPA officials already have halted the use of most explosives at the Cape
Cod reservation, and Governor Paul Cellucci wants to turn the training
grounds into a wildlife preserve. But yesterday EPA officials said
decades of military training have left toxic fingerprints that first
must be erased.

...

http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/007/metro/EPA_to_order_Guard_to_clean_up_Cape_base+.shtml 

-- 


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
http://www.cpeo.org


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