[CPEO-MEF] With eye to past, base asks public's review of projects

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Massachusetts
CAPE COD TIMES
KEVIN DENNEHY
June 7, 2003
With eye to past, base asks public's review of projects
The Guard wants community leaders to study homeland defense center plan.

In the mid-1980s, the National Guard had big plans for the Massachusetts
Military Reservation.

The idea was to spend millions to transform Camp Edwards into a modern
training center. Millions more would be spent to modernize Otis Air
National Guard Base.

However, the plan, pushed with no public input, triggered a lawsuit that
doomed the whole plan.

The complaint filed by the Conservation Law Foundation essentially
stalled all base improvements for nearly two decades.

Now, as the Guard again looks to reshape the Upper Cape base, this time
to address homeland defense challenges, military brass don't want the
past repeated.

This week, Guard leaders invited several environmental, civic and
business leaders from across the Cape to review all projects regularly
in the base's so-called cantonment area, a 5,000-acre industrial area in
the southern corner of the base.

A state environmental commission, formed two years ago, already monitors
all training in the northern 15,000 acres of Camp Edwards.

The new panel's first big task will be to review an evolving plan to
convert the Upper Cape base into the nation's first regional center for
homeland defense training.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/witheye7.htm

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