NEWS RELEASE
2004-03 Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR), Cape Cod, Mass. — She worked for the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., for 13 years, then the U.S. Army at the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, and now – in her 38th year of federal civilian service -- she’s in charge of the rooms of files that are the master library for the U.S. Air Force environmental cleanup program at the Massachusetts Military Reservation.
“The volume is overwhelming,” says Beverly Connolly, management assistant for the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence at the MMR. “There are thousands and thousands of documents,” she says. Fortunately, the search engine for the Administrative Record has recently been updated to make it easier to navigate through the huge number of documents. Want to find out why the road at Highland Street and Woodland
Avenue was torn up in Mashpee during May and June 1999? Every letter, plan, report, comment from the public and regulatory
agencies, map, and engineering drawing that was used by the Air Force Center for
Environmental Excellence staff to make a decision about an environmental project can be
found in the Administrative Record that Connolly oversees and maintains. Nearly 250
binders are needed to hold the documents. What are those monitoring wells doing on the public beach at
Snake Pond in Sandwich? The Superfund law, administered by the EPA, requires that all
organizations responsible for Superfund sites, keep an official record of what they do.
The Administrative Record serves two main purposes. “It’s a tool
for public use: to encourage public participation in the environmental cleanup
decision-making process,” says Connolly. “And it’s a stand-alone
legal source of information for lawyers.” How is the public involved in the decisions on the placement of
a proposed groundwater treatment plant, extraction and reinjection wells, and associated
pipelines in Falmouth? “The documents trace the progress through the many steps of the
government regulatory review and public input process,” says Connolly.
Reviewers include the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Massachusetts
Department of Environmental Protection. “Any final document that was used by
AFCEE to select a cleanup remedy is there in the Administrative Record,” says
Connolly.
Is the
contaminated groundwater from the Land Fill 1 plume affecting my neighborhood in Cataumet? “We get
many requests from the general public about cleanup sites near their homes,” says
Connolly. “There are files on each plume and the Air Force cleanup program in
general.” Other users of the Administrative Record are students, contractors,
and lawyers. Connolly’s
files are hard copies. The public can view the files in the AFCEE building on the
MMR, by appointment, since 9/11, public access to the military reservation has been
restricted. Many of the documents can be seen at the libraries in Falmouth, Mashpee,
Sandwich, and Bourne. Hard copies of the documents can be requested through
inter-library loan to any Cape Cod library from terminals within the library or from home
computers, using the Cape Libraries and Automated Material Sharing (CLAMS) system at telnet://clams.lib.ma.us. Every document is also
available in electronic format on the AFCEE website at http://www.mmr.org. Organizing the vast files and helping users find what they need in the Administrative Record is interesting, busy and challenging work for Connolly. “I love research,” she says, “I’ve thought about being a librarian.” For more information, please contact Mr. Douglas Karson, AFCEE/MMR Community Involvement Specialist, at (508) 968-4678, extension 2; Fax (508) 968-4673; or E-mail doug.karson@mmr.brooks.af.mil.
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