Environment Hawai`i received the following letter in response to the article, [url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=758_0_33_0_C]”Army Shows its Brass at Schofield Barracks,”[/url] published in the October 1991 edition:
On behalf of the Citizens’ Enforcement Project of the Natural Resources Defense Council, thanks for your comprehensive discussion of Clean Water Act violations at the Schofield Barracks wastewater treatment plant. One statement in the article, however, reflects a misimpression that we are writing to correct.
NRDC’s Citizen’s Enforcement Project is a team of NRDC lawyers and scientists that enforces environmental laws against polluters. In 1990, NRDC’s Citizen’s Enforcement Project sent a Clean Water Act notice of intent to sue to Schofield Barracks, an act that will allow us to bring a legal action, if necessary, against Schofield Barracks.
Your article states that NRDC “has not followed through” on this notice. This is not correct. NRDC has a policy of pursuing negotiation prior to legal action. Accordingly, we have spent the last year closely monitoring the situation through correspondence and conversations with Army staff. We are now assessing Schofield’s current situation to determine our future course of action. Either through negotiation or litigation, we intend to ensure that Schofield Barracks comes into compliance with the Clean Water Act.
Katherine Kennedy
Senior Project Attorney
NRDC Citizen’s Enforcement Project
New York
Volume 2, Number 7 January 1992