[CPEO-MEF] Military Preparedness

[starcompany@erols.com]

 Re:  Peter Strauss's Comments
 
Since you and I have talked, you know something about my concerns.  In view
of this, I have to respectfully disagree with your comments as they pertain
to my comments.  I tried in my comments to Stella's e-mail to be somewhat
non-specific since I am not and was not interested in giving a "sales pitch"
for any particular technology or approach.   I will continue to do so.
 
While I certainly understand your comments as a "general" statement, they do
not apply to technologies/technical approaches that are the subject matter
of my e-mail.  These technologies are over a decade old. have hundreds if
not thousands of successful case histories and at least hundreds of
successfully cleaned up sites, have been the subject of over 10-years worth
of continuing education courses at the University of Wisconsin, have been
the subject matter for training offered by the California DOT, have a
dedicated interest group sponsored by the National Groundwater Association
supporting the technology, have a newsletter sponsored by the NGWA dedicated
to the technology, is the subject matter of patents granted to the DOE after
several years of research and development, and have been successfully
deployed on DOE sites, DOD sites, very large airport sites (JFK Airport),
and many other types of sites.
 
You say that "each state and federal regulator must be certain that a
technology works as advertised (rightly so), and this is a long process. 
stakeholders are often reluctant to be Guinea Pigs for a new technology
(rightly so)."  First, no one is asking anyone to be a Guinea Pig.  The
technology and technical approaches we are discussing are well-proven.  But,
assuming this is true, why are the same criteria being applied to other
technologies which stand no chance of being successful at a site?  I know of
any number of sites where pump-and-treat technologies have been deployed to
recover groundwater from tight clay formations.  Then everyone is
disappointed when insufficient water is obtained.  I know of other sites
where hydrogen peroxide injection was used to treat contaminants which are
non-reactive with hydrogen peroxide.  In these cases, very appreciable
amounts of money were expended on an effort that had no hopes of being
successful. 
 
And, am I the first to observe that contractors like to get on the 
government gravy train" and "milk" it for all they can get?  I don't think
so.  The point, I think, of my and Stell's comments was that what we are
seeing is the old "shell game".  The argument is "We're fighting the war on
terrorism so we can't worry about environmental remediation."  I don't buy
it.
 
Louis Fournier
STAR Environmental, Inc.
 
 

 

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