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EPA honors Lenny Siegel

by Andrea Gemmet

The Environmental Protection Agency is honoring Mountain View's Lenny Siegel as its "Superfund Citizen of the Year" for his work in the community.

Siegel is the executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, where he has long been involved in the cleanup of the Superfund site at the Naval base at Moffett Field and the Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman (MEW) study area that is affected by fumes from contaminated groundwater.

"You serve as a shining example for other communities faced with the challenges that come with having a hazardous waste site in their community," said Mathy Stanislaus, the EPA assistant administrator of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, the EPA program overseeing the nation's Superfund site cleanups.

Siegel, an active member of the Moffett Field Restoration Advisory Board, was given the "2011 Citizen Excellence in Community Involvement" award July 19 at the EPA's Community Involvement Training Conference in Washington, D.C.

"In Mountain View we have found that an empowered community offers constructive input, and as a result we are listened to. Our success has not only helped protect our families from toxic environmental exposures, but it has served as a national model for community engagement," said Siegel upon receiving the award.

The honor is "very well-deserved," said William Berry, the former deputy director of NASA Ames who is currently the community co-chair of RAB.

"I have engaged with Lenny from both sides of the table and over the years have learned to respect his knowledge, dedication and integrity while appreciating his vision and insights for Moffett as well," Berry told the Voice.

Before heading the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, Siegel served on the Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue Committee, where he used his experience at Moffett Field to help design the system of community advisory boards at contaminated federal facilities.

Siegel has served on numerous other state and federal advisory committees, including the National Dialogue on Military Munitions and the original Defense Science Board Task Force on Unexploded Ordnance. He has served on three work teams of the Interstate Technology Regulatory Council (ITRC) and several National Research Council committees dealing with military environmental issues.