Despite four years
of outcry from local residents, the U.S. Navy is still considering leaving a
toxic legacy along the Mountain View shoreline at Moffett Field. An imminent
Navy decision could dash hopes for restoring more vital tidal marsh for bay fish
and wildlife, a stunning insult to the South Bay communities that were good
neighbors to the military for decades.
For 70 years at Moffett Field, the Navy used diked-off former bay
wetlands as a catch basin for runoff contaminated with toxic pesticides, metals,
PCBs, solvents and jet fuel. The Navy acknowledged its responsibility for
cleaning up what is now called Site 25 in a 1990 agreement with state and
federal pollution agencies.
Today, after 15 years, the Navy is dragging its feet and trying to
avoid a full cleanup of these contaminants, which continue to threaten wildlife.
As long as contaminants remain, the former wetlands at Site 25 cannot be
restored to healthy tidal marsh, the habitat that San Francisco Bay needs most
to recover from the urban fill, dredging and dumping that have destroyed 90
percent of its historic wetlands.
Restored tidal wetlands at Moffett Field would provide a crucial link
in the once-continuous band of tidal marsh along the South Bay shoreline. Site
25 is adjacent to former salt ponds that are now part of the South Bay Salt Pond
Restoration Project -- the largest wetlands restoration project on the West
Coast.
Restoration of
wetlands at Moffett Field could complete a continuous corridor of protected
South Bay wetland habitat, connecting the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National
Wildlife Refuge and Sunnyvale Baylands to the east with the mouth of Stevens
Creek, Mountain View's Shoreline Park and the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve
to the west. Such an extensive wetlands corridor would support millions of
migratory birds, shorebirds and endangered species such as the California
clapper rail and salt marsh harvest mouse.
Wetlands also are important to the Bay Area's quality of
life. Healthy wetlands improve the bay's water quality, reduce mosquito habitat
and provide flood control. Restoration of the South Bay shoreline can reconnect
communities to the bay, providing new access, and recreational and educational
opportunities, from Mountain View to San Jose.
Bay Area residents by the thousands have appealed to the
Navy and attended years of meetings demanding full cleanup and supporting
wetland restoration. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto,
Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, and the Mountain View City Council have
called on the Navy to fulfill its responsibility to the community and fully
remove contamination that threatens wildlife.
The intense community pressure has persuaded the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the current tenant at Moffett
Field, to withdraw its original support for the Navy's inadequate cleanup plan.
A recent NASA study concluded that it is possible and desirable to restore tidal
marsh at Site 25, if the Navy will clean up its toxic legacy.
But despite NASA's support for future
restoration, and the strong public desire for a full cleanup, the Navy still
hasn't gotten the message. This week, a cadre of Navy public-relations
consultants will travel to Mountain View and try to sell alternatives that would
leave toxics in place and wall off Site 25 with new levees. This is a slap in
the face to South Bay hopes for restored tidal marsh teeming with fish, birds
and other wildlife.
At other
Bay Area military bases, including Hamilton Field in Novato and Skaggs Island
west of Vallejo, contamination is being removed so wetlands can be restored. It
is past time for the Navy to clean up its act at Moffett Field and create a
better, cleaner future for the South Bay and its residents.
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