Minutes
Arsenic-Lead Remediation Committee
Thursday, March 22 2001
7:00 p.m.

Attending: Jim English, Rita Schenck, May Gerstle, Steve McDonald, Lyman Houghton, Nan Hammett

1) With regards to the 501©(3) status: King County and Secretary of State have a special nonprofit permit. We only need to file for this permit if we fund raise. We will file when there is a need to actively fund raise.

2) On Tuesday, March 20 the results of the University Place sampling was made public. Ecology has extended an invitation for our group to be a sounding board for University Place residents.

3) David Solet will attend the April 6 ALARC meeting.

4) Steve McDonald will give ALARC's perspective on the cancer study at the April 23 VMICC meeting. We will recommend that Marion Abbott and one epidemiologist attend this meeting. We will inform the Ticket and The Beachcomber on Wednesday, April 18 that we are doing this presentation.

5) It was advised that IRPPC Administration begin to plan the use of the grant money ( to be distributed July 2000) at their April 6 meeting. Request for proposals should be sent out soon.
Lyman Houghton expressed an interest in joining the board. Presently there are four board members, and ideally, the board should have five.

6) A letter to the powers that be in Ecology and Health is to be drafted by Rita, routed to all members, and ultimately signed by Jake and Jim. This letter will include the following:
A) We want to be involved early on all studies with regards to our island.
i) We want testing of food items.
ii) We want potential bio-remediation of species to be looked at.
iii) The speciation of arsenic need to be specific ( organic vs. inorganic).
iv) Quality of drinking water must be addressed.
v) We want access to actual technical people who are doing the work here. We want to talk to them in person.
vi) All documentation needs to be provided in a thorough technical version as well as a thorough lay person's version.
vii) We need a political and legal briefing which will tell us the reality of what the agencies can do.
viii) We need Ecology and Health to provide a basis for comparison on any arsenic-lead data that is disseminated to the public. Data needs to be compared with comparative data from other sources so that the general public can gain a perspective on what the data actually means.
ix) We want King County to collaborate with us on the design, mailing, and administration support of an island wide survey.