[CPEO-MEF] Cape Cod Times: Army General and Public Health

[joelf@cape.com]

  Please Post.  Here are the first paragraphs from articles in the 
Cape Cod Times concerning Gen. Van Antwerp's testimony before the 
Senate Armed Services committee. Full text may be found at web 
address following each article.

  CAPE COD TIMES, March 22,  2001

    ARMY SAYS READINESS AT RISK
One officer says communities should accept the health and environmental
hazards of training; another tries to strike a balance.


   By KEVIN DENNEHY
  STAFF WRITER
  The Army retreated slightly yesterday from statements made earlier in the
week before a congressional committee that suggested military readiness
should come before public health and environmental concerns. In written
testimony submitted Wednesday to a subcommittee of the Senate Armed
Services committee, Maj.  Gen. R.L. Van Antwerp, the Army's assistant chief
of staff for installation management, said environmental restrictions
imposed at Camp Edwards in recent years have contributed to a dangerous
precedent that could threaten the efficiency of military bases across the
country and the readiness of the soldiers who train on those bases.

"We must have community acceptance and support for  military activities,
including those military activities that affect public health and the
environment," Van Antwerp wrote. Army officials concede that decades of
military training have contributed to the contamination of billions of
gallons of water that flow beneath the Upper Cape base's impact area. The
military has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade and
a half cleaning up the pollution.
                                                      During an interview
yesterday, Col. Stacey Hirata, the director of environmental programs for
the Army, insisted that Van Antwerp was not insinuating that military
training should come before public health.

"I think you can strike a balance between what training activities are
required and public health," Hirata said. "It's not one or the other."
 
He added: 
"Clearly, if the military activity is endangering human life, the military
activity needs to be adjusted."
Van Antwerp said the Army is not looking to avoid responsibilities for past
activities, such as pollution at Camp Edwards.

What it's looking for is "relief from compliance with environmental
statutes," he wrote. That might, for example, include "legislative
clarification" to protect the viability of training and firing ranges,
which he said are being "encroached" upon by environmental concerns and
residential communities creeping toward bases.
                                                      "We're not at war,
there are no imminent hostilities anywhere," said U.S. Sen. John Kerry,
D-Mass., when asked
yesterday about the general's comments. "There's no rationale for lessening
our standards environmentally."
He added: "We have to be vigilant that the Army isn't going to try to do an
end-run on environmental regulations and legislation."
For full text see:
www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2001/mar/23/armysays23.htm



  CAPE COD TIMES

                                                     Editorials

March 24, 200
ANOTHER BOMBSHELL
A general's testimony continues the Pentagon's assault against the EPA.
                                                  (3/24/01)


First the context. What's happening at the Massachusetts Military
Reservation,especially the comprehensive soil and groundwater study of the
artillery and mortar firing ranges, is unprecedented.

Never before has the military been ordered by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency to suspend artillery and mortar firing and consider the
possible effects of training on public health and the environment.

That's why the comments made Wednesday by a top Army officer are expected
to reverberate across the country.

Maj. Gen. R.L. Van Antwerp, the Army's assistant chief of staff for
installation management, told a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services
Committee that environmental restrictions imposed at Camp Edwards have
contributed 
to a dangerous precedent that could threaten the efficiency of military
training across the country.

"We must have community acceptance and support for military activities,
including those military activities that affect public health and the
environment," Van Antwerp wrote.

In other words, military readiness should come before public health and the
environment.

Excuse us, but we thought national security included public health.

For full text, see:
www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/edits/ed24.htm
-- 
Joel Feigenbaum
24 Pond View Drive
E. Sandwich MA 02537
(508)-833-0144


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