[CPEO-MEF] PESTICIDES: "Settlement in Kaneohe military housing [HI] ground contamination lawsuit kept private"

[Lenny Siegel]

Settlement in Kaneohe military housing ground contamination lawsuit kept private

by: Rob Perez
Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)/Stars & Stripes
November 8, 2016

HONOLULU (Tribune News Service) — A lawsuit alleging that military families were not informed of high levels of ground contamination before they moved into their Kaneohe Marine Corps Base housing has been settled.

But even though the litigation raised public-safety questions for residents of a roughly 2,500-unit housing development on federal land and was filed against a co-defendant partly owned by the Navy, the settlement is secret.

Taxpayers aren’t privy to the terms, including whether federal dollars will be part of any possible payout.

“If it involves taxpayer dollars, I think taxpayers should have the right to know how (those dollars) are being spent,” said Neil Gordon, an investigator for the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight, which advocates for transparency in government operations.

...

For the entire article, see
http://okinawa.stripes.com/news/settlement-kaneohe-military-housing-ground-contamination-lawsuit-kept-private#sthash.ZqNTaYna.9E13nXST.dpbs

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel at cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org