[CPEO-MEF] RAB reacts to cleanup points in town survey

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Massachusetts
HARVARD HILLSIDE
RAB reacts to cleanup points in town survey
By C. David Gordon
July 16, 2003

AYER -- Aside from giving updates on environmental cleanup activities at
Devens, the Devens Restoration Advisory Board focused attention on the
survey distributed by the town of Harvard.
A question raised related to the environmental protection portion of the
survey that Harvard's Devens Focus Group has asked its residents to
respond to.

The question dealt with a description of the level of cleanup as
described in the background material that the focus group provided for
its survey. The passage in question states, "Most of the cleanup has
been for commercial/industrial use. Reclassifying any of these areas for
residential or school use may require additional cleanup, which would
become the responsibility of the property owner."

MassDEP Project Manager Lynne Welch noted that different cleanup levels
exist. Cleaning up an area to residential standard is to the level at
which children playing in the dirt would not come in contact with any
contaminant. Clean-up to industrial use standard is to a level suitable
for adults working in the area but certainly not touching the dirt.

Welch made the distinction between cleanup of groundwater contamination
and soils contamination. "In most cases," she said, with drinking water
wells in the area, there is a "striving to clean up groundwater to
drinking water levels." Soils, she said, would be different.

Ron Ostrowski, of MassDevelopment's environmental office at Devens, said
he thought "the Army's policy was to clean up sites to unrestricted use"
as cleanup efforts started at Devens. Later came a change to a
"risk-based" cleanup, related to expected use of an area.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.harvardhillside.com/Stories/0,1413,108~5342~1515372,00.html

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