By World BEYOND War, April 27, 2025
Joint Base Andrews — formerly Andrews Air Force Base — in Maryland, near Washington D.C., does local damage as well as serving as the departure point for U.S. Presidents to fly to spots distant from Washington, D.C.
Forever chemicals commonly known as PFAS are part of that damage, and the U.S. Air Force is addressing the problem as the U.S. government usually addresses problems, with public relations stunts. On Tuesday, April 29, it will hold a public meeting. We’d like people to join our Board Member Pat Elder in attending.
Pat, who maintains the militarypoisons.org website, has written about this:
The Air Force has chosen to engage contaminated communities like Prince George’s County, Maryland in three ways: through the establishment of a Restoration Advisory Board, through community “town hall” meetings that provide community members the [opportunity] to participate in “Q & A” sessions, and through highly scripted “community conversations.”
The Air Force tightly controls the agenda and the narrative at all three kinds of these civic engagements. An Air Force Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) is a regularly held community forum made up of Air Force representatives, regulatory agencies, and the local community members. The agenda and public releases regarding the meetings concerning environmental cleanup efforts are controlled by the Air Force.
RABs have no decision-making power, and their input can be easily dismissed or ignored by the Air Force. They create a kind of pressure valve to allow community members to vent their frustrations. RABs typically provide limited access to information, incomplete data sharing, and technical jargon that makes it hard for community members to fully understand the issues. RABs typically fail to reflect the full diversity of the impacted communities. There is no standardized model for how RABs function, so individual commands tend to make things up as they go along.
Even so, RAB’s can occasionally provide a source of embarrassment to the chain of command, so the Air Force would rather not have to deal with them. Throughout the country, the Air Force has issued boilerplate press releases saying the community wouldn’t be interested in participating. Here’s the one from JB Andrews:
Todd E. Randolph, Colonel, USAF Commander, Joint Base Andrews, issued this statement on September 12, 2023:
Decision Not to Establish a Restoration Advisory Board for Joint Base Andrews
In accordance with DoDM 4715.20, Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP) Management, Encl 3, para 16.c(3), this memorandum for record documents my decision not to establish a restoration advisory board (RAB) for Joint Base Andrews (JBA). I based my decision on a determination that there is not sufficient and sustained community interest in establishing a RAB for the Air Force environmental restoration program (ERP) at JBA.
Town Hall meetings may also prove embarrassing to the Air Force command, especially when members of the community are afforded the opportunity to hold the microphone and address the public and the press in attendance. Often, engineers and activists would directly contradict official statements.
It is understandable why the Air Force prefers highly scripted “Community Conversations” often featuring 2’ by 3’ professionally designed posters on tripods along the perimeter of a library room that typically fail to address the most pertinent environmental issues. Each information panel is “manned” by trained professionals who adhere to Air Force talking points. This preferred mode of public interaction allows the delivery of the DOD’s propaganda campaign, while depriving community members the opportunity to collectively address each other.
Let’s examine the environmental calamity the Air Force will likely ignore this Tuesday evening at the Surratts-Clinton Branch Library.
