[CPEO-MEF] War threatens shipyard cleanup

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California
War threatens shipyard cleanup
BY TIFFANY MALESHEFSKI
Special To The Examiner

Cleanup efforts at the heavily contaminated Hunters Point Naval Shipyard
could be suspended if the United States goes to war with Iraq, according
to a local environmental activist.

Saul Bloom, executive director of ARC Ecology, an environmental
nonprofit agency that has studied the shipyard issue for decades,
expressed concerns that a war with Iraq could put an immediate halt to
cleanup activities at the shipyard, which was decommissioned as a navy
base in 1974.

"There is no slush fund for war," Bloom said. "Cleanup programs are the
first part of the Department of Defense's budget that Congress raids (to
support military efforts)."

Bloom cited the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when the U.S. Navy, the lead
agency responsible for the cleanup, suspended its efforts at the
shipyard.

This article can be viewed at:
http://examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.bayview.0225w

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