PRESIDIO OF S.F. WASTE

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

Toxic waste to remain in Presidio

 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- In a decision that is drawing sharp criticism
from the National Park Service
 and environmental groups, the Army says it plans to leave toxic waste
buried in San Francisco's
 Presidio, a former military base that's being converted into a national
park.

 The Army has already spent $80 million on the Presidio's pollution
problems to remove a leaking
 underground heating oil distribution system. And it has proposed
spending $36 million in the next three
 decades for cleanup. Still, little of the money would be used to
detoxify old landfills and firing ranges or
 to purify polluted groundwater.

 Army environmentalists say the contamination poses little threat to the
public. Instead of removing all the
 leftover toxic materials, the Army favors spending most of its
remaining cleanup money on monitoring
 and restricting use of the polluted areas during the next three
decades.

 But critics, including the park's new manager, say the Army should be
held to a higher environmental
 standard.

 ``The Presidio is an extraordinary resource culturally and
environmentally, and it's the only national
 park that has emerged from the base closures. It just deserves a higher
level of cleanup,'' said Barbara
 ``B.J.'' Griffin, the Presidio's new general manager.

 Griffin says the Park Service would be unable to enforce the land-use
restrictions that the Army
 envisions. She said the Army's plan would increase the costs and create
new liabilities for the property.

 Compared with the armed services' more notorious environmental messes,
problems at the Presidio --
 an administrative post that left behind no huge toxic dumps or caches
of unexploded ordnance -- are
 relatively minor.

 Results of study

 Still, the Army's studies of toxic contamination at the 1,416-acre
Presidio run to thousands of pages:

 More than a dozen old landfills, some under ball fields or near
popular campgrounds, contain
 incinerator waste, lead, asbestos and other toxic materials that are
leaching into groundwater.

 A dozen old firing ranges contain high levels of lead and other
metals, including several sites at Crissy
 Field where the Park Service is planning to restore natural wetlands
and tidal marsh.

 Water accumulating in abandoned Nike missile silos from the 1950s is
rusting old tanks filled with
 hydraulic fluid, spilling their contents into groundwater and raising
the possibility of polluting Lobos
 Creek, the city's last free-flowing stream.

 David Wilkins, the embattled director of the Army's cleanup program,
defends the plan, saying that the
 level of contamination at most sites is so low it does not pose a
threat to hikers, bikers, campers or other
 recreational users of the park.

 Cost not justified

 At such a low level, Wilkins said, the Army could not justify a
complete cleanup, which he estimated
 would cost $90 million, triple the expense of the Army's current
proposal.

 ``There are regulations that say it's OK to leave contamination in the
ground as long as it's not above
 certain levels,'' Wilkins said. ``Some people just don't want to hear
that.''

 Critics charge that the Army has inflated the cost of a full cleanup
while minimizing the hazards,
 particularly worrisome in a national park that will be host to millions
of visitors annually.

 Published Sunday, September 14, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News 
Lenny Siegel
Director, SFSU CAREER/PRO (and Pacific Studies Center)
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@igc.org