[CPEO-MEF] HOUSING: Taku Gardens, Fort Wainwright (AK)

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility News Release 
(www.peer.org)

For Immediate Release: June 12, 2008


ARMY'S $100 MILLION HOUSING FROM HELL: ALASKA'S TAKU GARDENS — 
Responsibility Evaded for Uninhabitable Base Family Housing atop Weapons 
Dump

Washington, DC - For more then three years, the U.S. Army has 
hemorrhaged money into an Alaskan housing complex that will likely never 
be occupied, according to agency documents released today by Public 
Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). After a damning 
internal investigation, the Army ordered a new review which excused any 
misconduct as a failure to communicate, conceding only that "this was 
not an organization optimally aligned for success."

Under intense pressure to provide housing at booming Fort Wainwright, in 
2005 base officials authorized building 128 units on a 54-acre site, 
called Taku Gardens but with only cursory environmental assessment. 
Unfortunately, that site was an old weapons and equipment dump, 
profoundly contaminated with munitions (some holding chemical agent), 
dioxin, PCBs, tons of drums and equipment (including an entire 
locomotive and a forklift). By the time construction was halted, 79 
units had been built but will likely have to be torn down.

...

For the entire press release, see
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1063

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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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