Victory on the Bay Victory on the Bay (July 01, 2005)

Navy's about-face at Moffett is good news for Mountain View's residents and wildlife

By David Lewis

Local residents have accomplished something rare among U.S. Navy base communities: successfully pressuring military officials to clean up toxic pollution they planned to leave behind.

Years of intense community efforts have finally forced the Navy to agree to public demands for a full cleanup of toxic Superfund Site 25, located on Moffett Field's Bay shoreline.

The Navy's new draft plan, released last week, recommends for the first time a cleanup alternative that would allow tidal marsh restoration without contamination of wildlife, notably of threatened and endangered species like the California clapper rail and the Alameda song sparrow. If the Navy follows through on this plan and completes a full cleanup, this site will be able to support tidal marsh that provides safe habitat for fish and wildlife, as it did a century ago.

Moffett Field was once part of a continuous band of pristine tidal marshes along the South Bay shoreline, and a critical part of the Bay's ecology. During the Navy's occupancy, 260 acres of wetlands that had been diked and separated from the Bay were converted to a catch basin for stormwater runoff loaded with DDT, PCBs, lead and zinc.

The Navy's new Site 25 cleanup plan would excavate up to 61,500 cubic yards of contaminated sediment and transport it to a permitted disposal facility, at an estimated cost of $6.7 million. This plan comes nearly five years after Save The Bay and local community organizations offered a "Vision for Moffett Field," a blueprint for cleanup and restoration of tidal marsh habitat at Site 25.

A broad coalition of residents and local, state and federal elected officials campaigned strenuously for full cleanup, despite repeated rejections by both the Navy and NASA, the current site tenant. This Moffett campaign prompted more than 2,000 letters and e-mails to the Navy demanding a full cleanup, written requests from Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Anna Eshoo, and a letter from 16 community organizations to the Navy.

As for Save The Bay, it conducted a local advertising campaign illustrating threats to endangered species posed by the Navy's toxic legacy, and mobilized public rallies at Navy and NASA events to demand cleanup.

Mountain View and the surrounding communities appreciate how much our quality of life depends on a healthy and vibrant Bay. Together at Moffett Field we are reclaiming our shoreline and giving the Bay the voice it needs, working to clean up and restore habitat for fish and wildlife.

The Navy is scheduled to finalize its preferred Site 25 plan by September, and then community pressure will be needed to ensure the cleanup is funded and completed, so that actual habitat restoration and public access for recreation can proceed.

Help lock in this victory for the South Bay by submitting a supportive public comment on the Navy's "Draft Addendum to the Revised Final Station-Wide Feasibility Study for Site 25," accessible through www.savesfbay.org.
David Lewis is executive director of Save The Bay.

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