[CPEO-MEF] (reformat) Response to Air Force's Marilyn Null

[joelf@cape.com]

The following taken from the statement by Air Force official Marilyn Null
posted as part of EPA's recent on-line dialogue about their draft public
participation policy. The dialogue is now closed, but I believe Ms. Null's
statements require correction. I thank Steve Taylor of the Military Toxics
Project for calling this to my attention. The full text of Ms. Null's
statement may be found at:
http://www.network-democracy.org/cgi-bin/epa-pip/show_mesg?seq=00088
 
Here is the relevant portion of remarks:

 Statement by Marilyn Null
>
> Hi, folks. My name is Marilyn Null and I am currently the U.S. Air Force's
> Deputy for Community-Based Programs. I develop and oversee Air Force and DOD
> policies on stakeholder involvement in environmental and military training
> range management issues. I came to the Air Force from EPA where I was
> instrumental in building the Superfund community relations program in EPA
> Region 8 and nationally.
>
> [I SKIP SOME OF HER STATEMENT HERE]
>
> A final note: Someone mentioned that lessons might be gleened from work
> being done at the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod. I totally
> agree. Starting from a grid-locked situation several years ago, the Air
> Force turned the cleanup program at MMR into a model for community-based
> decision making through a comprehensive and inclusive process. One example
> is the Decision Criteria Matrix (can be found at www.mmr.org) in which Air
> Force, EPA, State, local government and citizens worked collaboratively to
> determine the most effective remedies for groundwater plumes coming off the
> installation, rather than following the regular process of the engineers
> deciding which three options they liked and asking the public to comment for
> 30 days.
>
> Look forward to a lively and productive discussion in the next couple of
> weeks.
>
> Marilyn


Response to Marilyn Null
The idea that "a grid-locked situation several years ago, the Air Force
turned the cleanup program at MMR into a model for community-based decision
making through a comprehensive and inclusive process" is a radical revision
of what actually happened. Marilyn cites the Decision Criteria Matrix (DCM)
as an example. If the experience at MMR is to serve as  a model, a little
background is required.

In fact, it was the South East Region of Massachusetts Department of
Environmental Protection (MDEP) that initiated the "comprehensive and
inclusive" planning process, including the DCM, in the Fall of 1993. Prior to
this, community participation was severely limited by the Air National Guard
which was running the Institution Restoration Program (IRP) at the
Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR). Until 1992, IRP meetings with
designated community "points of contact" were held behind armed guard. The
public at large was not allowed access, even as spectators. People were
forced to engage in civil disobedience in order to have their voices heard.

Under the MDEP program, citizens from the affected towns met twice each week
with state and federal regulators, USGS representatives, county
hydrogeologists and Air National Guard to develop a conceptual plan to
entirely cleanup nearly all known contaminated groundwater plumes. This
"Plume Containment Team" produced a document detailing unique aspects of the
problem on Cape Cod: The great extent and concentration of pollution; the
Cape's sole source aquifer; the fact that the area is surrounded entirely by
salt water; the high permeability of the soils; and the well documented
existence of very high cancer rates in towns surrounding MMR.

In mid-1994, this conceptual plan was accepted by our senators and
congressman with great fanfare, and the DOD Under Secretary for Environmental
Affairs committed $200 million to the project. The next task was converting
this document into a Proposed Plan and then an actual remedial design. During
this process, the Decision Criteria Matrix was employed to circumvent the
lengthy CERCLA Process. The Plume Containment Team continued to meet
regularly with the Guard's new contractor, OpTech Inc., a relatively small
and inexperienced engineering firm. It is important to note that citizen
members of the Team were integrated into a fairly large popular movement, led
by the Alliance for Base Cleanup, pushing for expedited cleanup

But disquieting news started to bubble up. OpTech was discovering huge data
gaps concerning the location of plumes and their true extent. Here's what had
happened: The Guard's previous contractor, HAZWRAP, a subsidiary of
Martin-Marietta (now Lockheed-Martin) had spent $100 million on remedial
investigation over nearly 10 years, but had wildly underestimated the extent
and severity of pollution, and the immediacy of the threat to local drinking
water and surface water bodies. New plumes started popping up and old ones
were found to be much longer than expected with extremely high concentrations
of solvents and the fuel additive, ethylene dibromide (EDB)(toxic at 0.02
parts per billion).

Clearly, neither the Air Guard nor Martin-Marietta had imagined that the
political will would ever emerge to actually cleanup the MMR mess--so why
bother accurately characterizing the plumes, better to down play the whole
thing while absorbing large amounts of cash (Guard consultants had publicly
denied the feasibility of plume remediation). So little OpTech was called
upon to remedy Martin-Marietta's non-performance. Moreover, OpTech was under
strict contractual time-lines to rapidly produce detailed plans for
simultaneously cleaning all polluted groundwater to drinking water standards.
OpTech was required to create the design having sufficient detail to support
competitive bidding at the construction stage of cleanup. In other words,
given too little information, OpTech was required to dead reckon engineering
plans for a massive cleanup operation.

The result was predictable: System meltdown. OpTech released its "60 percent
design" on February 6, 1996. The plan would have meant ecological disaster
for Cape Cod, creating deserts in one area and swamps in another. This
sounded alarms for top administrators at EPA Region 1 and for the
Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs--they verbally battled over
who really desired the fastest cleanup. Activists were placed in the unusual
role of telling the agencies that speed was not as important as the quality
of information. (One positive result of this fiasco: Since Air Force/Guard
plumes were larger than expected and cleanup had become problematic, EPA
Region 1 courageously moved to save what clean groundwater was left on Upper
Cape Cod. It ordered that all artillery and mortar practice be stopped by the
Army Guard, and soils and groundwater be studied for the presence of toxic
explosives. These have been found. That's another story.)

Out went the Air National Guard, and in came the Air Force represented by 
AFCEE (the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence) with the promise of
unlimited funds (presently, nearly $450 million has been spent, with more on
the way). AFCEE brought with them (or vice versa) the mighty Jacobs
Engineering Corporation. AFCEE not only called on Jacobs technical muscle,
but Jacobs has been the sole source contractor, handling its own public
affairs, groundwater investigation, remedial design, construction, and
performance monitoring. Soup to nuts. No need to go out for bids at each
stage of the project. Complete vertical and horizontal integration. This has
the beneficial effect of permitting remedial investigation and treatment
design, and even construction to proceed in parallel.

At first, things went well. The Plume Containment Team had lots of meetings,
busily filled out Decision Criterion Matrices and studied innovative,
non-invasive treatment technologies. However, it soon became apparent that
democratic participation was purely window dressing. A Jacobs plan for
cleanup of a major plume (Chemical Spill-10) was sent out for public comment
before consulting the Containment Team. Innovative technologies were always
considered, but ultimately rejected in favor of Jacobs' forte, old fashioned
pump and treat. Companies proposing alternatives (recirculating systems) were
roughed up and dragged off. AFCEE began conducting private negotiations with
politicians from each affected town.

The goal of complete containment was eroded. AFCEE tore up DCM decisions, and
permitted portions of plumes to migrate to the sea, and began reintroducing
"the No Action Alternative" (e.g. the Storm Drain-5 plume). In one case (Land
Fill-1), AFCEE ignored a carefully negotiated DCM solution in favor of
"Monitored Natural Attenuation (MNA)"  Official comments made on August  30,
1998 by Richard Hugus accurately describe the situation:
>
>>
>> The public should be told whether the Air Force will back down on previous
>> agreements and propose natural attenuation for other plumes, as it has done
>> for LF-1.
>>
>> The Plume Containment Team which included citizens, the Air Force, EPA,
>> DEP, Barnstable County and Town  officials, after countless meeting hours,
>> arrived at a decision for a preferred treatment for LF-1 in late 1997, only
>> to have the Air Force say afterward that it was choosing natural
>> attenuation, an alternative that was not even on the table. The established
>> Team process was  thus undermined.
>>
>> The Air Force was required by EPA to fund the extraction system chosen by
>> the team, but  failed to do so. Instead, the Air Force devoted extensive
>> resources into making its case for natural attenuation. No resources have
>> been available to the community to balance this with the case for
>> pump-and-treat and recirculating-well containment systems. AFCEE has
>> presented its own preferred alternative in the documents and in public
>> meetings in contempt of a process that has already taken place, as if
>> another method--an extraction-treatment system--had not already been
>> selected.
>
>
>
> Team members presented arguments showing that chlorinated solvents would not
> usefully be attenuated. A compromise was finally reached after much struggle
> and a partial pump and treat system was installed. In the Spring of 2001,
> all parties agreed that MNA was not occurring.
>
> When a very high concentration solvent plume was discovered, AFCEE's public
> reaction was to blame it on dumping by "some homeowner." It later turned out
> to be a down gradient extension of CS-10.
>
> Perhaps the worst example of all was that of Fuel Spill-1 (FS-1), at which
> 1-6 million gal. of aviation fuel were deliberately dumped into culverts
> leading off-base. AFCEE presented one treatment plan: no action, claiming
> that all fuel components had been biodegraded. Only when activists
> forcefully presented their own research, did AFCEE agree to look further
> down gradient for the fuel additive ethylene dibromide (EDB). It turned out
> that EDB had contaminated groundwater, a cranberry bog and an adjacent
> river. AFCEE's immediate remedy was to spend millions in an unsuccessful
> attempt to restore the productivity of the bogs--NOT to protect proximate
> drinking water supplies.
>
> AFCEE has now officially abandoned the Decision Criterion Matrix and has
> resorted to the old CERCLA process. Regarding further remediation of FS-1,
> even CERCLA was snubbed. Last April, AFCEE and Jacobs closeted themselves
> with low level EPA and MDEP project managers and offered a single treatment
> plan to the citizen members of the Containment Team. Comments were
> solicited, but an immediate decision was required in order to meet an
> enforceable milestone negotiated between AFCEE and the same EPA managers who
> had signed on to the plan.  A battle has been ranging for months, as some
> Team members demand an additional up gradient extraction well, which they
> this argue will speed aquifer restoration and thus pay for itself by
> decreasing the costs of operation and maintenance.
>
> It turns out that AFCEE has insufficiently characterized the upgradient
> portion of the FS-1 plume so that new monitoring wells must be drilled
> before meaningful analysis can be completed on a final remedy.
>
> Let's return to Marilyn Null's comments:
>>
>> ...the Air Force turned the cleanup program at MMR into a model for
>> community-based decision making through a comprehensive and inclusive
>> process. One example is the Decision Criteria Matrix (can be found at
>> www.mmr.org) in which Air Force, EPA, State, local government and citizens
>> worked collaboratively to determine the most effective remedies for
>> groundwater plumes coming off the installation, rather than following the
>> regular process of the engineers deciding which three options they liked
>> and asking the public to comment for 30 days.
>
>
>
> We may now see the inaccuracies in Marilyn's statement: (1) The Air Force
> did not turn the program into a model of community based decision making
> (etc), it found that model in place when it got here. (2) The Air Force has
> proceeded to dismantle agreements made under the DCM process. (3) It has, in
> theory, returned to "the regular process" mentioned by Marilyn, except even
> that has been violated as the case of FS-1.  We obtain the truth by turning
> Marilyn's statement inside out and upside down.
>
> It is discouraging to find public involvement specialists absorbing public
> funds in order to mislead the public.
>
> The foregoing should not be interpreted to deny that a great deal has been
> accomplished at MMR--obviously, $500 million is going to buy a lot of
> cleanup. There are many talented and dedicated workers at AFCEE and Jacobs.
> At crucial moments structured community input has been decisive. But this
> has happened only because of tough, persistent and intelligent people in
> each affected neighborhood who have steadfastly inserted themselves into the
> process. This kind of public involvement has been consistently supported by
> the local press, particularly the Cape Cod Times, and by courageous and
> talented individuals at all levels of EPA and MDEP.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  
> -- 
> Joel Feigenbaum
> 24 Pond View Drive
> E. Sandwich MA 02537
> (508)-833-0144
>
>
> 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~