RE: Long-term Stewardship

[bob eisengrein <beisengrein@fiam.net>]

You are so right about the long-range aspects of our Superfund problems. People and communities must gear up for this long range activity. We had a Superfund site thrust on us in 1978 and still have 5+ years to go before final remediation is complete. We have had turnover of EPA & MADEP personnel but our citizen group is still intact. Our original President is now 87, and I succeeded her but am 81. We hope to see the completion in our lifetime but????.

For continuity we have a repository in our local library but wading through past documents is not very enticing to new members or the next generation. We are striving to gain new younger members but I am not sure even that is enough.

Perhaps EPA could support periodic summaries produced be long-term members from citizens and EPA-maybe every 3 or 4 years. They would be minimally non-technical and basically tell the story of major happenings-successes & failures alike.  Most commuities have good writers who could take the facts and make a continuing story and thus preserve some important history. Our local paper has given our Superfund site good coverage over the years so perhaps EPA funding could allow this history be published every 3 or 4 years. It would be done professionally and the newspaper usually gets the variety of inputs needed for a balanced article-citizens, EPA, PRP, etc.