[CPEO-MEF] Grant Will Help Explain Fort Ord Cleanup

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California
MONTEREY HERALD
Grant Will Help Explain Fort Ord Cleanup
EPA money will be used to hire technical expert
By Sukhjit Purewal, spurewal@montereyherald.com
October 1, 2003

The Fort Ord Environmental Justice Network is getting some help from the 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to better understand what's going 
on with the cleanup of Fort Ord.

The federal agency is giving the network $50,000 to hire a technical 
expert to explain the science behind the cleanup of Fort Ord, a 
federally designated Superfund site.

"How can we comment on this if we can't understand it?" the network's 
executive director, LeVonne Stone, said as she flipped through a thick 
binder detailing cleanup operations on Fort Ord.

Technical assistance grants are given to promote community involvement 
in cleanup decisions at Superfund sites, said Lisa Fasano with the EPA 
in San Francisco. Viola Cooper, a community involvement coordinator also 
with the San Francisco EPA office, said requests for technical 
assistance grants are closely scrutinized and payments are only made 
after the experts are hired.

Stone founded the justice network in 1995 with her husband, Donald, to 
ensure that people from all backgrounds had a voice in the cleanup of 
Fort Ord and to lobby on behalf of workers displaced by the closure of 
the military base.

Since then, the network has also taken on the causes of homelessness and 
affordable housing: "The total environment of the people," said Stone.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/local/6905099.htm

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