[CPEO-MEF] COMMUNITY: [Fwd: CSWAB UPDATE: Army Gags Badger RAB Members]

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

From: 	Laura Olah <cswab@merr.com>


For Immediate Release
For more information contact:

Laura Olah, Member, Badger Restoration Advisory Board
representing Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger

Army Gags Badger RAB Members

Army officials have ordered rural neighbors of Wisconsin's Badger Army
Ammunition Plant to suppress an environmental report by an independent
consultant working with the local Restoration Advisory Board (RAB).

"Immediately following last night's public meeting, an Army official
pushed a document in front me saying that the gag order recently sent to
our consultant also applies to me," said Laura Olah, a rural neighbor of
the Badger plant and chair of the committee that secured the RAB's
technical advisor. “I was also told to contact anyone who has received a
copy of the report and withdraw it until the Army has first reviewed and
approved it."

The 11-page technical review, which was simultaneously provided to both
the RAB and the military, is critical of an Army proposal that would
allow higher levels of contamination on properties that are slated for
transfer to the State of Wisconsin, Bluffview Sanitary District, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, and Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

In particular, the Army wants to designate certain areas at Badger as
"industrial" which would allow the military to leave much higher levels
of soil contamination than currently approved by the Wisconsin DNR.  The
Army wants to increase allowed levels of the carcinogenic explosive
2,6-DNT, for example, from 4.29 to 620 parts per million (ppm).  Soil
cleanup goals for lead would increase from 30 to 500 ppm.

"Having an independent qualified provider contributes to environmental
restoration activities at the plant and will help achieve the best
possible cleanup," Olah added. "Maybe that's what the Army is afraid of."

The RAB's environmental consultant was hired under a program called
Technical Assistance for Public Participation (TAPP).  The federal
program was established by a 1995 amendment to the Defense Authorization
Act co-authored by U.S. Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin.  The RAB
conducted a national search and selected Virginia-based Environmental
Stewardship Concepts (ESC) as its TAPP advisor in 2008.

RAB members who supported hiring ESC include Mary Carol Solum (At Large
Member), Paul Herr (Town of Merrimac), Ken Lins (At Large Member), Mary
Jane Koch (At Large Member), Michele Hopp (Village of Merrimac), Laura
Olah (Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger), Charlie Wilhelm, (At Large
Member), Lance Delaney (At Large Member), William T. Stehling (At Large
Member), Richard Anderson (At Large Member), Ron Lins (Town of Prairie
du Sac), O.J. Befera (City of Baraboo), William F. Wenzel (Village of
Prairie du Sac), and Judy Ashford (Sauk County).

Since 1994, RABs have been established at over 300 installations and
properties in the United States and its territories to encourage
communities and installations to identify and discuss potential
environmental restoration issues.  TAPP funding is provided by the
Department of Defense and is available to community members of the RAB
at installations participating in the Defense Environmental Restoration
Program.

The next meeting of the Badger RAB is scheduled for April 26 beginning
at 6:30 pm at Badger Army Ammunition Plant.   All RAB meetings are open
to the public.

- END -






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