AIR HEADS

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

The following article can be viewed online at:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_2705082,00.html

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Colorado
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
On Point, March 5
AIR HEADS
March 5, 2004

Residents of western Lowry in Denver awaiting the cleanup of
asbestos-contaminated soil have now become full-fledged hostages to
military inertia. What other purpose could the Air Force's blandly
titled report, "Initial Health Risk Assess- ment," have other than to
drag out indefinitely its bitter dispute with state health regulators,
who insist the asbestos levels violate Environmental Protection Agency
standards and pose an unacceptable risk to not only residents but
construction workers as well?

The entire redevelopment of Lowry relied on a clean bill of health
issued after the original 1994 cleanup. Once asbestos was discovered,
the Air Force acknowledged its legal responsibility to pay for the
cleanup. But it later balked. The report is a paper version of its
bureaucratic insistence on a looser standard for asbestos as the trigger
for action. In the meantime, the cleanup costs continue to rise.

The foot-dragging flies in the face of congressional laws mandating the
Pentagon abide by the same cleanup standards as the nation's worst
industrial polluters.

A bipartisan coterie of Colorado politicians was supposed to have helped
break this ugly deadlock last year. Maybe its time they launched a more
serious ground assault on the offices of Air Force Secretary James
Roche.

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