[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS: Camp Bonneville (WA) expenses/cleanup letter

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Contractor hired by Army defends extravagant dinners

By Michael Andersen
Columbian (WA)
February 11, 2009

June 14, 2007, was, as lead contractor Mike Gage observed in his notes, 
"a very full day" for the little group of workers cleaning up Camp 
Bonneville.

"More cultural resources stuff, lots of county insurance stuff, a lunch 
on finance stuff," then a long walk with county workers to look over the 
$300,000 fence being built around the former U.S. Army camp while it was 
prepared for use as a county park.

For Gage, it was the sort of day that ended in a $125 business dinner 
for three at Vancouver restaurant Tommy O's, complete with six orders of 
Bombay Sapphire.

Receipts on file with Clark County show that Gage, a former deputy mayor 
of Los Angeles, spent the last three years as a one-man stimulus package 
for Clark County's finest eateries, developing a federally funded taste 
for lava cake and top-shelf gin.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.columbian.com/article/20090211/NEWS02/702119931



See also
Camp Bonneville cleanup costs, tempers soar
State prepared to force project's completion by contractor

By Erik Robinson
Columbian (WA)
February 11, 2009

If an $815 meal tab doesn't alarm you, this number might: $5 million.

State environmental regulators say that's a rough accounting of the 
extra cost of clearing old shells from just one wider-than-expected area 
at Camp Bonneville.

As the U.S. Army and the prime contractor hired by Clark County fight 
over bar tabs, spiraling costs threaten to delay the day when the former 
military installation becomes a county park.

The state Department of Ecology weighed in last week with a sharply 
worded letter to contractor Mike Gage.

In it, the state vowed to go to court to ensure Gage's company lives up 
to its responsibility to prepare the 3,840-acre site for re-use as a 
county park — whatever it costs.

"If they ever run out of money, then the Department of Ecology intends 
to go back and compel the Army to do the cleanup," said Barry Rogowski, 
who manages the Department of Ecology's oversight of the $26.8 million 
cleanup.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.columbian.com/article/20090211/NEWS02/702119929


--


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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