Fwd: [CPEO-MEF] DOD must clean its messes

[cpeo <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Colorado
THE DENVER POST
Editorial
DOD must clean its messes
April 22, 2003

Colorado will have trouble protecting its clean air, water and land if
Congress lets the military off the hook for environmental messes.
Hazardous waste at Leadville, Pueblo, Aurora and elsewhere could remain
if Congress exempts U.S. Department of Defense facilities from crucial
environmental laws.

The proposal would let the federal government run roughshod over state
and community concerns, even about old bombs and chemical weapons. The
measure so alarms state governments nationwide that 47 members of the
National Association of Attornies General, which represents AGs from all
the states, oppose it.

Among them: Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar, who last week sent a
letter to the state's congressional delegation, pleading with them in
the strongest possible terms to oppose the measure.

Salazar most fears military exemptions from the Clean Air Act, Superfund
and a hazardous-waste law called the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act (RCRA).

Colorado used RCRA in 2000 to stop the U.S. Army from unsafely exploding
sarin bomblets at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver. If the
exemptions had been in place at the time, Colorado could not have
prevented the Army from possibly letting nerve gas drift over the
metropolitan area.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~73~1341074,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~