[CPEO-MEF] HABITAT, REUSE: "The Indiana prairie's last best chance" at the Newport Chemical Depot

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The Indiana prairie's last best chance – Part 1
Army refuses to protect rare grasslands at former Newport VX plant

by Steven Higgs
Bloomington Alternative (IN)
August 20, 2011

Editor's note: On Aug. 12, 2011, I toured the Newport Chemical Depot  
with a group of environmental activists working to save and expand a  
rare, black-soil prairie on the soon-to-be-former U.S. Army base.  
What follows is the first in a series of stories that will include a  
cover story in NUVO, Indianapolis's alternative newsweekly. A Photo  
Album from the tour is posted on the Alternative site. - sh

NEWPORT, IND. – Environmental activists in west-central Indiana have  
lost the first round of their ongoing struggle to protect a patch of  
endangered black-soil prairie on the U.S. Army's Newport Chemical  
Depot (NECD). On Sept. 15, the Army is scheduled to transfer the  
7,100-acre base to a quasi-governmental group, with no protections  
whatsoever for the prairie and several endangered species that  
frequent it.

The restored, 336-acre prairie's fate rests with the Newport Chemical  
Depot Reuse Authority, whose five members are appointed by the  
Vermillion County Commissioners. So far they have refused to commit  
either way and at times have been downright hostile toward the  
preservationists.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.bloomingtonalternative.com/articles/2011/08/20/10758

--

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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