Comments for NAVSTA/Newport Five-Year Review, 2009
From Dr. David W. Brown, Restoration Advisory Board citizen member from Newport.
Main points:
- Overall, the Navy, Tetra Tech, EPA and RIDEM professionals are working conscientiously to complete the cleanups amid other national/local preoccupations and tightening budgets.
- No serious local/nearby concerns about dangerous hazards or cleanup processes have surfaced lately. But some sites have cleanup/construction aftermath that is unattractive and erodible.
- More attention might be given to site interfaces with current land/near-shore uses, upstream runoffs nearby, and other environmental management/cleanup programs
- Site cleanup priorities have become fuzzy. On-base construction, Navy recreation wants, civilian quests for site excessing and re-use, and losses of institutional memory from decision-maker changes have tended to bump earlier (1997) cleanup plans and focus.
- This RAB is no longer a major vehicle for Navy/agency/local leader interactions re site cleanups. Might have fewer meetings, but feature an annual NAVSTA cleanup “summit” that brings together more key people and the media.
1. Overall impression?
The well motivated working-level specialists in the Navy, EPA, RIDEM and Tetra Tech have been doing a very conscientious job of seeking to maximize and sustain cleanup accomplishments amid ever-tightening budget constraints, and less involvement and interest of their higher-ups than a decade ago.
2. Effects on surrounding communities?
- Nearby places and groups concerned with Narragansett Bay seem to be relieved to have the worst of the toxic waste deposits/runoff removed or covered up.
- Officials and developers are eager to make use of (maybe too much use of!) the sites that have been largely cleaned up and now likely to be excessed by the Navy.
3. Community concerns?
- A decade ago there were concerns about a) allowing kids to play on sites that might still have contamination (OFFTA), and b) loss of shellfish and eelgrass along the shoreline. One doesn’t hear much about that any more.
- Cleanup priorities among sites have become fuzzy. In 1996-7 the base commander and other key people from the Navy, EPA and RIDEM worked with us in the RAB to establish cleanup priorities among the NAVSTA sites. We used a systematic rating system and involved local leaders. This process seems to have been forgotten. In-house Navy desires to use some spots for new buildings, parking, staff recreation, etc. have tended to bump the plans (understandable to certain extent). As excessing some sites has become likely, the Navy has met with Island leaders and planners to explain BRAC and final cleanup obligations, and to assure compatibility with the Aquidneck Island West Side Master Plan. That’s good. But, even so, some of us citizens worry a) that behind-the-scenes lobbying and political pressures could distort remaining cleanup priorities and b) that re-user interests will try to get the Navy to divert funds toward cleanup upgrades which they themselves should cover.
4. Problems at any of the sites?
- I sense that residents near the cleaned-up tank farms wish they wouldn’t look so much like the aftermath of construction sites.
- I like the way that good vegetative cover has been established and maintained on McAllister Landfill cap. But I’m not sure that enough has been done to prevent surface-soil erosion on idle sites like the Tank Farms. The natural re-growth of weeds and brush and small trees helps a lot (and also encourages good wildlife habitat). But there are some undulating bare spots that may need vegetative cover and seem also at odds with natural drainage patterns.
5. Feel well informed?
We on the RAB continue to be well informed about the cleanup via publicized meetings, special briefings, site visits and web site, and excellent visual aids and handouts. But, in contrast to 10 years ago when we were the main cleanup-planning focal point, we are now just a smallish group that does not include key leaders or influentials. The newspaper announcement of a RAB meeting yields two or three new citizen-visitors at most. We on the RAB are getting older and are not doing much any more to read/comment on the technical plans/reports in detail, or to communicate with others in our communities. In fact, I’ve come to feel rather guilty about all the effort going into the special briefings for us, and my not pitching in to help like I used to. It has proven hard to interest young people into becoming RAB regulars.
Likewise, the public meetings/hearings approach that we, the Navy and EPA/RIDEM sponsored a decade ago didn’t bring out many citizens, except when an issue like perceived OFFTA playground hazards had raised emotions.
On the up side, recognizing that neither we nor public meetings are an effective avenue, the NAVSTA information officer, Base Commander and others are taking the initiative via special briefings for city/town officials, planners, Chamber of Commerce and other leaders as new milestones are reached, especially in connection with the Navy new land-use plan and possible excessing of some sites. These briefings have received considerable media coverage. But they apparently do not go into much cleanup detail, other than when attendees ask about who has to do what before the land can be reused.
So does it make sense to continue the RAB during these later NAVSTA cleanup stages? There is a role that we can play as a sounding board for draft reports, and also to let the dedicated youngish staffers from the Navy, EPA RIDEM, and Tetra Tech know that we in the communities much appreciate their work. But the RAB meetings do create more burden and travel for them, and add (albeit modestly) to costs.
One option (short of adjourning or dissolving the RAB) might be to have fewer meetings and to feature one annual “summit” that presents/discusses the “State of the NAVSTA Cleanup”, with participation that includes Navy/agency higher-ups as well as the interested public. We on the RAB might re-energize ourselves and help organize that.
6. Other site management suggestions?
I think land uses and surface/subsurface drainage from areas “upstream” from the sites themselves could receive more attention. The tendency has been to gear cleanups to what has happened on OFFTA, the tank farms, etc. themselves. Meanwhile, nearby Navy parking lots appear, and there may be N, P and other runoff onto sites from private landholdings farther up the slope. Pollution causes and cleanup results become hard to gauge.
Federal and state policies do not encourage CERCLA and RABs to take on cleanups broader than designated site cleanups per se -- see the (latest?) May 12, 2006 DoD Final Rule on RABs, on the web at FRDoc06-4246. Yet informally, our own staffers have been able to mesh CERCLA with petroleum spill cleanups and other programs to some extent. They might extend this further – e.g., seek USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service help (now expanding) for tackling ongoing upstream pollution.
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