[CPEO-MEF] Base closure's environmental hurdles

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Closed military bases can leave behind pollution problems

By JOAN LOWY
Scripps Howard News Service
March 29, 2005

When the Army's Fort Ord in California was put on the federal base
closure list in 1991, real estate developers salivated.

If "location, location, location" is the credo of real estate
development, then Fort Ord appeared to have it all - 28,000 acres
located along the spectacular Pacific Coast Highway between Monterey and
San Francisco, including three miles of beachfront.

Local government planners and developers envisioned housing developments
and shopping plazas, office complexes and hotels that would enhance the
tax base and compensate for revenue lost when the Army pulled out.

Today, only a small fraction of the site has been developed, largely
because of environmental concerns, including scarce freshwater and
contamination of existing supplies; the presence of endangered species;
fear that development would increase sprawl and traffic; and a vast
legacy of unexploded munitions from decades of training exercises.

With the Defense Department poised to release its first new round of
base-closure recommendations in a decade - possibly the largest number
of closures ever - the lesson from Fort Ord is that even the most
promising candidates for redevelopment can harbor significant
environmental hurdles.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=BASES-ENVIRO-03-29-05&cat=AN 

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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