[CPEO-MEF] REUSE, HABITAT: Newport Chemical Depot (IN) prairie

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

FLASHPOINT: Army needs to protect the prairie at Newport Depot

Opinion by Marty Jones and Phillip Cox
Terre Haute Tribune Star (IN)
March 27, 2011

There are a lot of misconceptions that the 336-acre U.S. Army Newport  
Chemical Depot prairie will
be saved. For the record, this is the largest black soil prairie in  
Indiana and there are no
guarantees that it will be saved. The Indiana Department of Natural  
Resources (IDNR) stated in a
March 2009 letter about the future reuse of the Depot, "Today in the  
21st century, prairies and the
grassland animals dependent upon them are considered globally  
threatened. The importance of
prairie to endangered grassland species, floodwater retention,  
groundwater recharge, watershed
protection, return of carbon to soils, erosion control, and  
aesthetics, among many other realized
benefits, has caused prairie conservation to be an increasingly  
important issue. A restoration on
this scale would be of national significance."

Last November, the Army released a "Finding of No Significant Impact  
(FNSI), Environmental
Assessment of the Disposal and Reuse of Newport Chemical Depot,  
Indiana" and the Final
Environmental Assessment (EA) of the Implementation of Base  
Realignment and Closure at
Newport Chemical Depot, Indiana.” There were many concerns and  
comments sent to the Army
about these documents. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request  
was submitted to the Army
on Dec. 28, 2010, requesting all of the public comments. The Army  
finally responded on March 8.
They denied the request for a fee waiver and gave only one day to  
answer if more than $1,600
could be raised to get the 800 pages of public comments. This is  
clearly a case of the fox watching
the chicken coop; and it is obvious that the Army does not want those  
comments to get into the
public’s hands in a timely manner.

...

For the entire article, see
http://tribstar.com/opinion/x1332406678/FLASHPOINT-Army-needs-to- 
protect-the-prairie-at-Newport-Depot

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street, 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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