J_R

From the AMA website

AMA and EPA Set Course for Flying Site Partnership

The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) is pleased to announce that, due to our continuing efforts in the task of acquiring more flying sites, we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the purpose of investigating the possible use of recovered superfund sites for model aviation activities.

This relationship provides additional opportunities to develop new flying sites and, at the same time, build worthwhile partnerships with the communities in which they are located, an opportunity in which modelers help provide a valuable activity on a previously unused piece of property.

Don Koranda, AMA’s Executive Director, states “… this is truly a noteworthy achievement and a potentially lucrative source of flying sites for our members which is one of our main responsibilities.

Please keep close to your AMA web site for the latest developments in this rapidly evolving program and watch for the June issue of MODEL AVIATION which will include a feature article about this exciting new flying site resource.

tailskid

My Feedback: (34)

Sounds good....

Jerry

mongo

My Feedback: (15)

heck, we could probably even night fly, with the glow from the once contaminated ground<G>

CDignition

My Feedback: (9)

lol..I wonder if the AMA insurance covers you for cancer,lol

Jim Branaum

My Feedback: (3)

Only if you can prove it was a direct result of flying models and you never flew without being a member. If you did it for one year, they could deny the coverage.



Now, back to the real stuff. This is great because I know of a few such sites that would make good flying locations but be terrible for almost anything else. These sites make good flying sites because the ground is open (we really don't like trees in the flight path - ) and they really don't want kiddos digging forts in the cap soil used. Sounds like a real win win for all involved.

Hossfly

Superfund sites, eh?

Looking at the palm of AMA I see the purchase of an airport has not died.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
1. For years, AMA maintained a Right of First Refusal on the private airport just south of AMA/Muncie.
2. AMA approved a Phase II inspection.
3. AMA then drops the Right to First Refusal. ?[:-]?

FUTURE EVENTS:
1. Federal government (EPA) cleans up site.
2. AMA purchases airport for "model aviation" use.

Sounds like "3D" has done it again. A little 'tail-touchin' can work wonders now and then. Way to go!

TexasAirBoss

My Feedback: (22)

Not in my backyard ! Oh, wait, yes put one in my backyard , please !!

rw Guinn

Hoss-Watch out!
I heard a bunch of Helicopters headed south Early this morning. Couldn't see them, but something occluded the stars...

Live Wire

Do the ppl at AMA no about "ROCKY FLATS" [&:] We need some thing in Colorful Colorado

[8D]

SSRCCPREZ

I have a 50 acre superfund site across the street from my house, I fly there already and they even have buildings and pavement. Now I can be a club of more than one lonely nuclear plane.

I am excited about this

SSRCCPREZ

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

All well and good until the AMA says, "Okay local club, here's the land. Now it's up to you to develop and maintain it." Then it'll be back to wailing and moaning about how the AMA does nothing for the typical member.

J_R

Gee, I thought this was kinda neat. There is a Waste Management site within a mile of my club. The AMA also has a very good relationship with Waste Management. In CA, it seems more sites than not are superfund sites. I have heard, for some time, that Joe Beshar of the AMA was working hard on this agreement. As a matter of fact, it came to fruition faster than I expected. In any case, the field we now have has other issues and it would be nice to have the way paved, so to speak, to get another site.

Just for what it is worth, it's my understanding was that the Phase II report came back just fine. It was because of the EC's concern, led by EVP Doug Holland, relative to the continuing operational costs, as well as the acquisition costs the purchase of Reece Airport would bring, that led the EC to release the right of first refusal for the purchase.

Live Wire

Interesting how this Reece Airport keeps poping up

[8D]

abel_pranger

Matt-
I think (hope) you are being facetious about this. I belong to a club that has acquired use of a closed landfill for our flying site - some 20 years ago, so there is nothing new about this, nor unusual. Getting access to the site is more than enough to expect from any organization above the club level, be it a national organization like AMA or as it was in our case, from a consortium of clubs in our county. Development and maintenance of it isn't the hard part, and we were and remain grateful that we had the opportunity to do it.

Abel

Georg Matthews

My Feedback: (6)

Are we really getting so desperate for flying sites that we will take land that nobody else wants because of health concerns ?

abel_pranger

Yes.

Actually, we consider it to our advantage that our landfill site is closed to development, even as a county park, for at least 40 years. Our investment in developing it as a flying site has a known lifetime, which is more than can be said of many club sites. It's not without problems - there is settling that results in dips and cracks in the runway over a period of years, and we were shut down for a period of time when methane leaking from fissures in the clay cap reached levels deemed potentially hazardous. Still, it beats the constant threat facing many clubs of being run over by sprawling suburbia.

Abel

Hossfly

Perhaps one should not compare Waste Management projects to Superfund which has more to do with the government's (EPA) cleaning up those contaminated sites that have been abandoned.
>>>>>>>>>>
Superfund is the Federal government's program to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Under the Superfund program, abandoned, accidentally spilled, or illegally dumped hazardous waste that pose a current or future threat to human health or the environment are cleaned up. To accomplish its mission, EPA works closely with communities, Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs), scientists, researchers, contractors, and state, local, tribal, and Federal authorities. Together with these groups, EPA identifies hazardous waste sites, tests the conditions of the sites, formulates cleanup plans, and cleans up the sites.
<<<<<<<<<<<

>>>>>>>>>>>>
On November 10, 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new phase of the Superfund Redevelopment Initiative (SRI) known as the “Return to Use” initiative (RTU or the Initiative). The Initiative is designed to remove barriers to reuse that are not necessary for the protection of human health, the environment, or the remedy at those sites where remedies are already in place.

//snip//

//snip//
Under the Return to Use initiative, EPA is working in partnership with communities to overcome obstacles to reuse. These site-specific partnerships, referred to in the Initiative as “demonstration projects,” can be as formal or informal as communities wish, ranging from the most informal agreement between community representatives and EPA Regional representatives, to a memorandum of understanding between Regional Offices and local stakeholders.

GOALS AND BENEFITS

Site reuse actually helps protect human health and the environment. Reuse of vacant properties can prevent sites from becoming targets for midnight dumping, vandalism, and destructive trespassing. When sites are returned to productive use, local users deter inappropriate activities and can also immediately alert authorities if improper use has resulted in the need for repairs to the remedy.

Appropriate reuse of these sites also allows the community to regain lost landscapes as valuable green space, or to add recreational amenities or commercial property. Removing the stigma associated with fenced and vacant Superfund sites may also increase local property values and augment the tax base. Organizations reusing sites may even take over some operations and maintenance requirements, thus reducing states’ or other parties’ obligations.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Such program is NOT connected with a regulated disposal such as Waste Management performs.

J_R

Hi Horrace

It was not my intent to state that Waste Management and the EPA superfund sites were directly related. On the other hand, however, they are related, often (but not always) by consent decree. You can find many examples of such relationships on the EPA superfund site. In the case of the site near me, Waste Management closed a section and it is under the authority of the EPA, however Waste Management does the work as a condition of the consent decree (or so it has been related to me). Getting to the site requires access through the Waste Management facility.

As the first quoted paragraph you made available shows, contractors, among others, perform the necessary functions to clean up the sites.

abel_pranger

Aside from the pastime of picking nits off Bandini Mountain, it's very good news. Beshar, De Cou & Co have previously performed some liaison with Waste Management, and this is a natural follow-on for AMA efforts to assist in obtaining flying sites - which is for me the highest priority thing they can do, both for the existing members and to promote growth of modeling and the organization. It's obvious that as the flying sites are lost more rapidly than they are being replaced, traditional fixed-based clubs will diminish in numbers, and AMA will shrink accordingly. BTW, it isn't necessary or practical to rely solely on AMA to do this. It is appropriate that they deal with the big guys that have many sites across the country, but they can't be expected to represent us to local agencies that operate, and ultimately close, landfill sites. If these sites are to be exploited for flying sites it will have to be done by clubs and groups of clubs at the local level.
From the experience of my club, I can tell you its a very good deal. The lease cost is a small fraction of what the cost of ownership of the site would be if it were given to us outright. It's a large piece of property; the perimeter chain-link fence probably well exceeds a mile in length. Imagine what that item alone would have cost us. We don't pay any taxes on it. The county agency that owns it pays a considerable maintenance cost for erosion control. earthmoving to control drainage and fill fissures that develop in the cap and leak methane, and even mowing. In recent months I've at times seen enough county and contractor personnel on site performing this work to exhaust our annual dues income of less than $5K in a single day.
For Horrace - Owning the property isn't the only answer, nor is it axiomatic that it's the best answer.

Abel

Live Wire

It would be great just once to have one positive report from any one here. We contradict our selves most of the time and do not have the correct answer 90% of the time.
Glad no one pay's any attention to us[]

[8D]
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