Community Involvement There are many opportunities for the public to become involved in the investigations and decision-making process in the IRP. Public meetings and posterboard sessions are held, display ads are placed in newspapers to announce significant events and meetings, news releases are issued, tours of the sites are conducted, neighborhood notices are distributed to notify people of events in their neighborhoods, and public notices of other kinds are issued In addition eight citizen teams advise the IRP and the regulators about the program. They include the Senior Management Board, and the Joint Process Action Teams, which is made up of the Plume Containment Team, the Long-Range Water Supply Team, and the Public Information Team. All these teams are made up of citizen volunteers and government representatives working together for resolution of problems and completion of cleanup. All citizen team meetings are open to the public. Certain teams are decision-making teams. They include the Executive Review Group, the Management Review Group, and the Remedial Project Managers. A technical advisory team called the Technical Review and Evaluation Team, advises the decision-making teams. The review teams also have relationships with other basewide environmental teams and organizations, such as the EPAs Impact Area Review Team, the States Community Working Group, the Citizens Advisory Panel formed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the Department of Defenses Joint Program Office. You are encouraged to attend the meetings of any of the groups listed above. Alternatively, you may attend the public meetings conducted on various plumes or sites. You may also submit questions or comments to us in writing or by emailing webmaster@mmr.org. The web site offers a great variety of information, including technical documents, meeting agendas and summaries, maps, glossaries, weekly reports, and news releases. The community involvement phone line (508-968-4678) has an extension (x4) dedicated to news about the program and upcoming public meetings. Five local libraries serve as repositories for the numerous documents that detail the cleanup program. |