[CPEO-MEF] Editorial-Pentagon Doesn't Need Environmental Waivers

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@cpeo.org>]

Traverse City Record-Eagle
Editorial

Pentagon Doesn't Need Environmental Waivers

A suggestion by the Department of Defense that military commanders give 
President Bush suggestions on where he could issue military facilities 
executive exemptions from a host of environmental laws should be shelved 
for now - until 2050 or so, for instance.

   It's a bad idea and an unnecessary return to the bad old days when the 
military - along with much of American industry, for that matter - simply 
dumped what it didn't want anyplace that was convenient.

   Reminders of the long-term harm of such policies were visible right 
here in Traverse City not so long ago.

   Anyone driving along Parsons Road near Cherry Capital Airport could 
spot wells that were part of a massive, decade-long cleanup necessitated 
when aviation fuel and other chemicals got into the groundwater near the 
current Coast Guard air base.

   The pollution was so bad that dozens of homes in what is called the 
"alphabet street" area near the airport were provided with bottled water 
and, eventually, city water.

   Just a few years ago, when the Coast Guard ceded land at the airport to 
Traverse City Area Public Schools for use as a soccer complex, more 
polluted material was unearthed when some excavating was done. That was 
sealed over and left there.

   For current examples, one need go no further than Camp Grayling, where 
wells monitor the groundwater near the headwaters of both the AuSable and 
Manistee rivers.

To view the entire article click on the following link:

  http://www.record-eagle.com/2003/apr/040603.htm


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Aimee R. Houghton
Associate Director, CPEO
1101 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC  20036
tel: 202-452-8039; fax: 202-452-8095
Email: aimeeh@cpeo.org
www.cpeo.org
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