RAB keeps tabs, 'eye' on Edwards' cleanup

  • Published
  • By Heidi Gesiriech
  • Environmental Management
RAB -- no it's not the name of the latest craze in dance music.

Rather, the Restoration Advisory Board is a group of individuals organized under federal guidelines to offer public feedback and advice on environmental cleanup efforts here.

"Our purpose is to keep an eye on the base's cleanup projects," said Ruby Messersmith, the North Edwards representative and RAB public co-chair. "All of these communities are interested, and we don't want our drinking water contaminated."

By attending regular RAB meetings, Mrs. Messersmith and the other board members have learned that while the base has 471 cleanup sites, about 80 percent of those have already met cleanup guidelines and none of the sites threatens any drinking water source -- either on base or off.

The Restoration Advisory Board are a key component of public involvement for military installations. The beginnings of that public involvement is decades old.

It was the Love Canal tragedy of 1978 that set the stage for a change in national attitude toward unrestricted toxic dumping. In the late 1950s, 100 homes and a school were built on top of the cover of a previous municipal and industrial chemical dumpsite, creating a small neighborhood that covered 36 square blocks in the southeastern corner of Niagara Falls, NY.

The lead paragraph of a front-page story in the New York Times published Aug. 1, 1978 read: "NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. -- twenty-five years after the Hooker Chemical Company stopped using the Love Canal here as an industrial dump, 82 different compounds, 11 of them suspected carcinogens, have been percolating upward through the soil, their drum containers rotting and leaching their contents into the backyards and basements of 100 homes and a public school built on the banks of the canal."

By Aug. 7 of that same year, President Jimmy Carter had declared a federal emergency for the town. Eventually, hundreds of families were relocated and their homes purchased by the government. Unfortunately, the result of exposure to those chemicals followed the residents to their new homes in the forms of birth defects, cancer and significant health problems.

Two years later, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that gave government a way to assign responsibility and exact payment for the cleanup of contaminated sites. This legislation, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, also known as Superfund, formed the foundation for the RAB to process a two way communication between the public and the officials responsible for the cleanup.

Today, there are more than 250 installations across the United States and its territories with participating Restoration Advisory Boards. The RAB at Edwards consists of community or public representatives, representatives from federal and state environmental regulatory agencies, the 95th Air Base Wing vice commander, and the base remedial project manager.

Restoration Advisory Board meetings at Edwards are held quarterly and are open to the public. A recess during the meeting allows members of the public an opportunity to bring concerns or questions to the attention of one of the community representatives.

The RAB at Edwards originally formed in 1992 as a Technical Review Committee, and changed its name two years later. Members do not have to be experts in environmental restoration, but they do need to live or work in the community they represent and be sponsored by a community organization.

"RAB members need to interact with the residents in their communities, attend the meetings, become involved and listen," said Mrs. Messersmith, who has been involved with the board for more than 11 years. "The Air Force uses so many acronyms that there needs to be a time element for new members to understand their meanings and the ongoing cleanup efforts."

Working at Edwards for 12 years starting in 1958, Mrs. Messersmith said she was well aware of the fuels, solvents and other chemicals used on base. She became involved with RAB after reading about possible contamination in a local newspaper.

The RAB process is definitely working at Edwards, she said.

"When I started, there were potentially over 500 hot spots on the base," Mrs. Messersmith said. "Now, all have been analyzed and Records of Decision are in process."

Mrs. Messersmith said she feels her work to keep the contamination on record has been one of her greatest contributions to RAB and the base.

The next RAB meeting will be held Thursday at the California City Parks and Recreation Community Center.