2005 CPEO Military List Archive

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>
Date: 19 Oct 2005 03:04:00 -0000
Reply: cpeo-military
Subject: [CPEO-MEF] Letter about South Weymouth
 
Submitted by Dave Wilmot <DCatbird37@aol.com>

Congressman Delahunt,

I am writing to you today to air important grievances I am finding with your representation to protect your constituents best interests, myself and my family included.

As I'm sure you know, I am one of many people living in proximity to the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station who has been stricken with Multiple Sclerosis. I am one of the between 70 and 80 I know about. "Privacy Law" prohibits me from finding out anything that the State Department of Public Health has gathered over the past few years, with my help I may add.

I know of few homes in my neighborhood untouched by cancers or chronic health conditions.

Through multiple meetings at your office and years of impassioned email and letters, I have made sure to keep your staff (Corinne Young) and yourself, aware of my evolving Public Health concerns here. These concerns are shared by people all over the globe, who find themselves trying to raise their families and live their lives in proximity to industrial/military Superfund National Priority List Sites. The politics of the nation keep a shroud over most of this. It must be quite an effort and waste of funds.

For years, your office has shown great interest in my concerns. Hardly ever a full day would pass without your office responding in some way to information I took the time to share with you. The information and concerns I took the time to share with you, I also attempted to convey to Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Kerry, the Navy, and the federal and state regulators involved in the BRAC/CERCLA cleanup of my longtime neighbor.

Without demanding all responsible CERCLA cleanup measures to protect the Public Health, our government, and these all too itchy developers, are risking the lives of those of us that live here now, as well as the 3,000 new homeowners that will choose to live on the former base in the future.

Allowing the start of what in large part is being concerted as a huge "village" residential development, before all responsible CERCLA-ordained environmental cleanup, is propagating what has started in Hanford, Washington and other contaminated military sites, as a continued governmental blind eye turned away from the environmental woes left for the Native American people, the urban and rural poor, and what here is the next tier of economically challenged bearers of increased chemical body burden, the lower income suburbanites labeled by this military BRAC cleanup process as deserving no more than government enforcement of "urban cleanup levels." When I became a city dweller is unknown to me. Perhaps the Congressman could take the time away from quelling his recent bad press regarding missed votes to enlighten me?

While a lifeless heavy-metal contaminated stream is allowed to continue flowing through our neighborhood, the position you have taken is to laud the excitement of the necessary "regional financial engine!!!" People in my neighborhood are excited by the new ambulance that is presented to us as mitigation by the developers for the increased pollution and clogged roadways this new "village" will saddle us with. Maybe the new ambulance will get us to South Shore Hospital quicker? Many, a voting majority of my neighbors were swayed to vote by the successful PR efforts funded by the developers. My neighbors are rightfully more involved in getting to their kids ball games and finding money for the mortgage for another month.

I find the Congressman's silence in allowing this PR campaign to win the vote as a clear indication of what little my much stated health concerns means to "the big picture."

The amount of disregard for adopting the "Precautionary Principle" our leaders show while chronic diseases escalates around me, astounds me.

95% of my life is spent in a chair now. It gives me a lot of time to study the different aspects of my disease now.

I find it interesting that the incidence of MS is exploding in this country...

I find it interesting that many of the contaminants at high levels in the water, soil, and sediments at the base have been proven to cause cancer, birth defects, and chronic neurological problems like the disease I and my family, and so many of my neighbors struggle with.

I had hoped you in particular, or someone of worldly significance, would find the time to grant me a response to the letter of concerns that I presented to Bryan Olson of the EPA at my home last Thursday, and later sent to you.

I can not honestly affix blame to my own living next to this air station as direct cause of my affliction, as I'd mentioned many times before, I as a young man had worked in a Silver mine/Zinc Smelter in Idaho. That site is now the #1 National Priority List Superfund site in the country.

I can honestly say this, the MDPH refusing to become involved with the EPA in drawing a complete picture of our neighborhood's health, via the "Basewide (and beyond) Watershed Assessment" now being planned by the EPA and Navy is a grave injustice and a blanket thrown atop the responsibility that our elected United States Congressman should hold as sound obligation.

I can honestly say this, the Politics and Money Exchange that prohibits many Americans from our fair share of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" is a moral crime, and I believe my elected Congressman has a duty to properly address the concerns of a constituent who is spending so much of his energy looking out for the welfare of all his constituents...

please think about that and respond will you?


sincerely,


David Wilmot
10 Arch St.
Abington, Ma. 02351


-- 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 http://www.cpeo.org

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