RE: Long-term Stewardship

[Marty Walters <marty_walters@terrasano.com>]

Aside from nuclear sites, our memories are not much good 
even for plain old chemical contamination sites.  I recently 
reviewed several Phase 1 real estate assessments  that 
completely left out the property's history as a military site.  In 
one case, when I went back to the military's information 
repository, I found that a CERCLA site was present and that 
long term use restrictions were part of the remedy selected, 
but there was no discussion of how these were to be 
implemented or enforced.  Once the property was turned 
over to the City and County of Honolulu and then to a private 
developer, the institutional control was present only to the 
extent that zoning in the neighborhood is not residential.  No 
deed restrictions or notifications, no disclosure.  Granted, 
this transfer occurred in the early 1990s so things may be 
better now.  I think this is one area where EPA can show 
leadership at a national level to help local governments 
track, enforce, and disclose institutional controls through 
their planning departments.