[CPEO-MEF] FISCO No Further Action Plan

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The transfer of FISCO (the Fleet Industrial Supply Center Oakland) from
the U.S. Navy to the Port of Oakland has been put forward as a model for
the early transfer of property and the privatization of cleanup. In
August, the Port released a Proposed Remedial Action Plan, developed in
cooperation with Cal-EPA's Department of Toxic Substances Control. The
Plan illustrates why the FISCO experience is an unrepresentative model
for facilities that have more contamination, more complex problems, or
controversial remedial decisions.

In June, 1999, the Navy transferred FISCO's 530 acres to the Port of
Oakland. 201 were transferred under the Early Transfer authority.
Regulators agreed to a "no action" remedial action plan for the offshore
Early Transfer parcel - 102 acres later that month. The pending Remedial
Action Plan, for the Onshore Early Transfer parcel finds no further need
for soil cleanup, even under unrestricted future land use scenarios.
(The Navy had removed contaminated soil from several sites from
1994-1998.) Though there is no current beneficial use of the underlying
groundwater,  the plan recommends a ban on drinking water well
installation as well as groundwater monitoring.

In essence, the Navy's privatization of the cleanup allowed the Port of
Oakland to move forward while finishing the studies and paperwork
associated with cleanup. That was probably a good thing. (I don't know
the facility well enough to offer an unqualified endorsement of the
cleanup.) But it doesn't provide a model for the Sunflower Army
Ammunition Plant, Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard, or other major
contamination sites where privatization and early transfer have been
proposed.

Lenny
-- 


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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