MARCH AFB SUCCESS

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>

MARCH AFB SUCCESS REPORTED
A member of the March Air Force Base (Riverside, California) 
Restoration Advisory Board just sent me an article from the Riverside 
Press-Enterprise declaring the cleanup of the base, a majority of which 
is being closed, an emerging success story.
The newspaper reports, "the cleanup should be essentially completed by 
2000, about a decade earlier than expected. Final cost is expected to 
be $175 million, half the original projection ..."
Among the cleanup solutions adopted at March was the consolidation of 
six landfills into one. The Press-Enterprise explains, "It is an 
important step because it frees up acreage for development in a part of 
the base designated for redevelopment."
Increasingly, military bases are consolidating landfills instead of 
relying on the EPA presumptive remedy of capping in place. When that 
presumption was originally made, no one had much experience with large 
contaminated properties containing multiple landfills. Moving waste off 
site is legally difficult, so consolidation from properties on 
non-contiguous properties was rarely considered. But at closing 
military bases, it's a good way to reduce the long-term toxic 
footprint. Landfill consolidation, however, still requires careful 
consideration of the legal and technical requirements.
Lenny Siegel