Back to the Table of Contents Page

Back to the Voice Home Page

Classifieds

Publication Date: Friday, August 24, 2001

@pullquote: "We've been neighbors of Moffett for 20 years, and let's face it, we've always gotten the cold shoulder."

Craig Britton, general manager of the Mid-peninsula Regional Open Space District

Moffett cleanup stalls as open-space district ownership discovered

By Justin Scheck

The controversial Superfund cleanup of a Navy toxic site at Moffett Field took an unexpected turn last week when it was discovered that part of the site is owned by the Mid-peninsula Regional Open Space District.

The Navy's proposed cleanup of the Eastern Diked Marsh and Stormwater Retention Pond, a wetland at the Northwest end of Moffett Field, has been criticized by environmental groups, the City of Mountain View, and local residents. They contend it would preclude future restoration of tidal flows to the area, which was diked off from the bay in the early part of the last century.

Working under the premise that the marsh and pond were wholly owned by NASA, the Navy formulated a cleanup plan that is geared toward NASA's "reasonably anticipated future land use," which, according to Sandy Olliges, NASA's environmental coordinator at Moffett, does not involve restoring tidal flows.

But over the past two weeks, local residents concerned about the cleanup realized that a significant portion of the stormwater retention pond-which contains PCBs, DDTs, heavy metals, and other contaminants-is owned by the open space district, a public agency charged with acquiring and preserving open space in parts of San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties.

The new development adds another governmental body to an already messy situation involving three federal agencies-NASA, the Navy, and the U.S. EPA-as well as numerous local regulatory organizations working to come up with a cleanup plan that, under federal law, must protect human health and wildlife in accordance with the future land use of the site.

Craig Britton, the open space district's general manager, said that since the district acquired the site in 1980, restoring "partial tidal flows to the property" has been the goal. The district's 54 acres comprises about one-third of the pond, he added.

Inter-agency dispute

Britton said he feels the Navy marginalized his organization, and his feelings were echoed by over 20 concerned citizens at a Thursday night meeting held by the Navy to get public input on the issue.

The Navy admits to making a mistake-they contend that they simply did not realize the district owned the land-and others who have followed the cleanup for more than a decade agree that this is likely.

However, Britton sees this as the latest in a series of federal government snubs of the open space district. "We have been dealing with the Navy and NASA for about 20 years... And have had about 20 years of frustration and failure," said Britton.

He said that, although Andrea Muckerman, the Naval cleanup coordinator at Moffett, "promised" the cleanup would not go ahead without the district's buy-in, "our experience is that there are always ways around it... We're not a regulatory agency. We don't have any clout."

Britton said the open space district was not aware of the contamination at the site until the last couple of weeks, when he was notified of the Superfund cleanup.

Naval oversight

Muckerman said Tuesday that the Navy's failure to notify the district was due to a past administrative mistake; in documents from the mid-1990s, she said, the district is identified as a landowner. But later documents do not identify the land as being owned by the district. Since Muckerman began work on the project in 1998, she said, she had never heard that the district owned land there.

She said the Navy is bound by federal law to include the open space district in their decision-making process.

"It's a requirement that we coordinate and get the concurrence of landowners on the cleanup," said Muckerman.

Lenny Siegel, a local cleanup advocate and national expert on military base environmental cleanups, said that aside from the procedural requirements that the Navy include all landowners, the specific nature of this cleanup gives the open space district an even more prominent role.

He said the disputed cleanup plan would require the landowner to sign an agreement to maintain "institutional controls" guaranteeing that tidal flows not be restored at the site. Siegel said a landowner cannot be forced to sign such an agreement. And furthermore, if a cleanup plan has the potential to negatively affect property values through restricting land-use against an owner's will, the plan may be contested on constitutional grounds.

Siegel, who has been working on Moffett projects for over 20 years, said he believes the Navy's failure to notify the open space district was a result of the 1998 changeover, and said he believes it will be possible for NASA, the open space district, and the Navy to come to a compromise on the cleanup.

Olliges said she has been aware of the open space district's ownership of part of the pond "for a long time, probably ten years."

But, she said, she had thought the Navy was notifying the district of the cleanup.

Open space district left out

Britton said that, although he deals with NASA officials frequently on issues regarding the Bay Trail and pumping from the stormwater pond, he has heard nothing from them about the cleanup.

"We've been neighbors of Moffett for 20 years, and let's face it, we've always gotten the cold shoulder," said Britton.

Britton said that, despite the district's long-standing complaints about unresponsiveness from NASA and the Navy, he has no plans to monitor the cleanup more closely, nor does he plan to send a representative to meetings of the Moffett Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), a group made up of cleanup officials and interested community members that serves to discuss and give input to the cleanup plans.

"We weren't asked to (join the RAB). What good would that really do us?" asked Britton.

The RAB began discussing the cleanup, and the dispute about leaving open the possibility of tidal restoration, on May 10 of this year.

Britton said it is the responsibility of the other agencies involved in the cleanup to keep the open space district informed.

"It was their responsibility to let us know, and they didn't. There's no way I'm taking responsibility for keeping tabs," he said.

Olliges said that she will continue discussing the project with the Navy and the open space district, although NASA still has no plans to restore tidal flows to the site. She said that if the open space district wants to do so, it may be possible to build a dike to divide the pond so that tidal flows can be restored in the open space district's area.