Re: Senator touts wider probe of base water

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

The following response was posted by Ted Henry <ted@theodorejhenry.com>
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DOD moves toward BRAC 05 with characterization processes in place that
did not work well in the past and will not work well in the next round.

The US Army continues to move toward reducing effective cleanup
management, overwhelming regulatory oversight and tearing down working
relationships with communities at active installations via poorly
thought out Performance-Based Contracting - all in the name of projected
time and/or cost savings that have less chance of coming to fruition
than the US having good international relationships under the leadership
of the current administration.

Perchlorate and other emerging issues are getting funneled into NAS
review loops that delays action for years because of disagreement
between DOD and EPA, despite the latter being the entity established to
protect human health and the environment.

And RRPI is coming around for round three targeting CERCLA, RCRA and
CAA, having already gained strategic victories over other natural
resources via exemptions or "clarified language" for the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act, Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.

All this is taking place with the backdrop of greater secrecy and less
respect for and understanding of community involvement at the policy
level.

This article outlines a potentially massive exposure scenario from past
ignorance when environmental cleanup was just getting started.  I hope
that today we would not discover contamination in year one and only halt
use or fix the suspected exposure pathway a full five years later, as
suggested in this article.

However, given the direction of our government's approach toward the
environment and public health listed above (noting there are
site-specific exceptions where these things are taken seriously), and
considering my own experiences in the ongoing battle at the APG RAB
regarding A) efforts to restrict the release of cleanup-related data and
B) not taking prudent action on perchlorate before it becomes a far
worse problem, I suspect we are moving into a time period where this
country will make such exposures and depletion of natural resources,
followed by investigation 20 years later after the damage is done, more
prevalent.

This is unfortunate and sad, for we now should know better and simply
choose not to because of money, power, a lack of caring, short-term
thinking and all the other descriptions one might use to describe the
more ugly side of what we have become.  It is amazing what we will feed
ourselves and still believe it is good for us.

Ted Henry

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