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CPEO MILITARY FIELD VISITS
 Piñon
Canyon Maneuver Site Expansion: A Cloud Hangs over Southern Colorado
by Lenny Siegel
February, 2008
The Army proposes to nearly
triple the size of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in Southern
Colorado. Ranchers, supported by a diverse coalition, oppose the
expansion. They are fighting to hold on to their property and preserve
their way of life—multi-generational, sustainable cattle-raising. With
support from Congress, they have delayed the plan, but the threat of
future eminent domain depresses the region’s economy.
Download 3-page, 716 KB PDF file with pictures.
 Communities
and VOC Response at Department of Defense Installations
by Lenny Siegel
September, 2007
CPEO Executive Director Lenny
Siegel visited communities hosting Defense Installations and discussed
Volatile Organic Compound response technologies with community members.
In the course of this project, he visited four bases with large
environmental restoration programs, known contamination with TCE and/or
PCE, and a history of significant community involvement and
controversy. He talked with members of Restoration Advisory Boards and
other community groups at the following five installations:
• Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, North Carolina
• the Army’s former Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colorado
• former Kelly Air Force Base, Texas
• Otis Air National Guard Base, part of the Massachusetts Military
Reservation
• former Moffett Field Naval Air Station, California. (Siegel has
served on the Moffett Field Technical Review Committee and Restoration
Advisory Board for more than 17 years.)
In addition, Siegel drew upon earlier visits to other military
facilities and recent visits to contaminated civilian properties across
the country.
Download 8-page, 1.9 MB PDF file with pictures.
 Communities and Munitions
Response
by Lenny Siegel
September, 2007
The Center for Public
Environmental Oversight evaluated public stakeholders’ views of
existing and emerging munitions response technologies. In particular,
CPEO sought to find out how impacted communities view munitions
response strategies in which project teams selectively excavate
geophysical anomalies recorded during site surveys. To answer this
question, Lenny Siegel visited munitions response sites at Amaknak
(Dutch Harbor), Alaska; the former Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range,
Colorado; Camp Edwards, Massachusetts; and the Former Mojave Gunnery
Range Complex, California. In addition, he drew upon earlier visits to
numerous other military ranges as well as correspondence with
stakeholders from other munitions response properties. He interviewed
landowners, members of Restoration Advisory Boards, and other public
stakeholders.
Download 5-page, 1.4 MB PDF file with pictures.
 Encroachment
is a Two-Way Street
by Lenny Siegel
September, 2007
For the past several years, the U.S. armed services have
been confronting “encroachment,” civilian development near the
fencelines of military installations as well as under low-level flights
paths. While its legislative proposals have had mixed success, its
efforts to establish buffer zones have been remarkably successful.
Conservation organizations and many local governments are more than
willing to partner with the Defense Department. Yet in many locations
the armed services find themselves in direct conflict with community
activists. Therefore, the Center for Public Environmental Oversight
evaluated public stakeholders’ views on encroachment and military range
sustainability, particularly in Hawai‘i and North Carolina. Download
5-page, 1.4 MB PDF file with
pictures.
Download 6-page, 1.7 MB PDF file with pictures.
 Communities and
Chemical Warfare Materiel
Disposal
by Lenny Siegel
May, 2007
The Center for Public
Environmental Oversight conducted field work to evaluate community
attitudes toward the various technologies and approaches to Chemical
Warfare Materiel (CWM) response. CPEO Executive Director Lenny Siegel
visited five communities where Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) have
known CWM issues and interviewed stakeholders, including local, state,
and tribal officials. The five FUDS were the American University
Experimental Station, Spring Valley, Washington, DC; Amaknak Island,
Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands, Alaska; Former Lowry Bombing
and Gunnery Range (also known as Buckley Field), Aurora, Colorado;
Black Hills Ordnance Depot, Igloo, South Dakota; and Former Camp
Sibert, Steele, Alabama. The stakeholders who took part in this study
were remarkably frank, and they offered valuable, though varied
opinions about the technologies with which they were familiar.
Download 19-page, 2.2 MB PDF file with pictures.
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 Kelly Air Force Base: Indoor Air Testing Is
Needed
by Lenny Siegel
April, 2007
For years the neighbors
of now-closed Kelly Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas, have blamed
the installation’s massive groundwater plumes of PCE and TCE for their
illnesses, and they have called for more off-post remediation. On a
recent visit to Kelly, CPEO Executive Director concluded that the
neighbors’ concerns may be justified. High soil gas levels of those
compounds in the East Kelly area suggest a need for indoor air testing
and a comprehensive evaluation of potential vapor intrusion.
Download 3-page, 756 KB PDF file with pictures.
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 Sandy Run: Reverse Encroachment at Camp
Lejeune, NC
by Lenny Siegel
March, 2007
In the 1990s, the Camp
Lejeune Marine Corps Base in North Carolina established a new live-fire
training area, the 41,000-acre Great Sandy Run Area, just west of the
historic base. Since then, neighbors along High Hill Road, sandwiched
between Sandy Run and the main post, have complained about excessive
noise. Despite the Marines’ active program to reduce conflicts between
readiness activities and the interests, existing tools do not
adequately address reverse encroachment.
Download 3-page, 2.4 MB PDF file with pictures.
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 Watertown Arsenal, Massachusetts
by Lenny Siegel
November, 2006
The Watertown Arsenal, as
a whole, stands as model of successful public participation, cleanup,
and reuse. In fact, the 48-acre BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure)
parcel is slated for deletion from the “Superfund” National Priorities
List (NPL) this month. Originally built in 1816 to manufacture cannon
balls and other weapons of that era, the Arsenal later became the Army
Materials Technology Laboratory, complete with its own nuclear
reactor—which was removed in 1994. Lacking the sprawling buffer zones
required at 20th century Army Ammunition Plants, the Arsenal at its
peak covered only 131 acres.
Download 7-page, 4.1 MB PDF file with pictures.
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 Joliet
Army Ammunition Plant, Illinois
by Lenny Siegel
August, 2006
The 24,000-acre Joliet
Army Ammunition Plant, in Illinois just south of Chicago, was
constructed during the early 1940s. The Manufacturing area produced 4
billion pounds of bulk explosive, primarily TNT and tetryl, through
1977. It is listed twice on the "Superfund" National Priorities List,
but most of the cleanup is done. Completion will take several more
years, but most of land has been made available for reuse. The new uses
- Intermodal cargo transportation, warehousing, a national cemetery, a
county landfill, and the first National Tallgrass Prairie - are
underway, but removing buildings and debris, as well prairie
restoration, will take decades."
Download 10-page, 1.8 MB Word or PDF
549 KB file with pictures.
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