From the office of Rosa DeLauro:
“Cucia Park was the top choice of the Mayor’s Advisory Panel and I am pleased to see that, after its review of three different sites, the Army Corps agrees that this location represents the best potential site for the new Reserve Center in Middletown. I have long made clear through correspondence and conversation with the Secretary of the Army and elsewhere, that in order to find a suitable site for this facility, all interested parties -- the Army, town and citizens-must work together to find a mutually agreeable site. I will continue to represent the interests of Middletown and its citizens as we move forward with the environmental review of this site.”
9 comments:
Not certain if my opinion falls somewhere between "pleased", "so pleased" and "thrilled". The entire selection process was personally exhausting, enlightening, and entertaining in so many ways.
Too bad that the army employees didn't do their homework about which sites were viable before making announcements that their bureaucracy had difficulty retracting. Too bad the army listened to city officials who kept trying to direct the them to Maromas. Recall, that the Development Director "remembered" that Cucia Park was a possibility only after the army had once and for all ruled out all sites in Maromas. A great deal of personnel time and travel expenses by the federal government could have been saved.
Looking forward to burying these bones of contention and turning attention to the simplicity of illicit Hot Dogs!
Credit the enlightenment of Northeast Utilities for having placed Freeman Road's meadow in a conservation plan. Credit the Army for rejecting the City's hard sell of River Road. Credit the City for rising to protect Boardman Lane. Credit the unknown planning giant who discovered Cucia Park at the last moment. Credit the Mayor's Advisory panel for having done no harm and for making the participants feel useful. With all this credit to spread around, why look for blame?
Admittedly, the demonstrable inexactitude of intelligence surrounding this matter, gives paws for the lengthy reflection so loved by sleeping dogs. Let's smother our deep-seated dissatisfactions and let them lie.
Jasper Cane
Here here! Let's be happy! This is wonderful news!
Now that Representative de Lauro has committed all this support for Middletown, how about directing some of that support to cleaning up the OLD Army Reserve training site on Mile Lane, which was deemed too polluted for the Army to re-use. It clearly is in the watershed that runs off into the Sebethe River and then into the Connecticut River.
The Army did not reject the Mile Lane site on account of pollution. Instead, it was not considered because it was required to be transferred to the City. Additionally, the City has planned a variety of public uses for this centrally located piece of property.
At the meeting that I attended, the spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers stated that the Mile Lane site was polluted, and that the Army would not consider remediating a site, even if they had caused the original problem. Perhaps the City has plans for this land; if so, whose problem is the contamination? I believe when the State transferred the Long Lane property to Wesleyan, the cost of remediating the soil contamination remained with the State. Can you help us out on this, Anonymous?
Mile Lane has a very small amount of contaminated soils. Very manageble.
Also, the Army is fully responsible for the contamination at Mile Laqne and they have every intention of cleaning it up, the problem it is one of thousands of sites the Army needs to address.
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