To the Journal editor:

They say, “No news is good news.” I say some news is good news. When I found out the news that the Cliff-Dow site was off the table, I jumped with joy.

Finally, the city of Marquette and the Michigan Veterans Home Agency, who were so adamant about using this contaminated site, realized that the site would always be contaminated. The site will always have to be monitored and just covering it up wouldn’t get rid of the viscous black tar, which contains cancer-causing carcinogens like benzene, phenol, tetrachloroethene and various others.

Neither side wanted to handle the responsibility of continually monitoring this sie due to the fear of future lawsuits. The city of Marquette tried on three different occasions to get rid of their $1 purchase of 11 acres of useless land which Veridea Group, the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency and the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority rejected.

To the city of Marquette, take your $1 loss and give up on that fenced-in lot. All the rhetoric and controversy is past. It’s itme to pursue the sites that the Michigan Veteran Home Agency supposedly checked out during the original location selection process.

Marquette County is the largest county in the state of Michigan and there must be another site that doesn’t take 16 acres to build a facility for our veterans. A few examples are the Marquette County Medical Facility, Eastwood Medical Facility, Negaunee Teal Lake Assisted Living and Norlite in Marquette.

We who opposed the use of the Cliffs-Dow site are thankful to the Michigan Veterans Home Agency for conducting further investigations and rejecting such a transaction. You have saved yourselves a lot of possible problems down the road, not only for veteran families but also for employees.

In closing, I would have to say that the veterans who saved their country and suffered for this country deserve this new facility on a non-contaminated site. It has always been my goal to find the best and safest site available. Through this process, I have witnessed a group of people who were all in favor of building on the Cliffs-Dow site.

I respect your opinion, I really do, but all the veterans that were for the transaction seem to have forgotten how our government said certain contaminates were safe.

Remember Agent Orange during the Vietnam era, Camp Lejeune water and the burn pits of Iraq and Afghanistan? It took years to realize the devastation caused by these contaminants that have resulted in thousands of deaths after exposure to these contaminated areas.

I apologize if I came off a little strong but the evidence provided pertaining to the Cliffs-Dow site, during the whole process, sure looked gloomy for the future of the veterans’ home. Better heads prevailed, so let’s let bygones be bygones and get the ultimate goal completed.

I would hope in the future one might just give up after all the controversy between many different entities who tried to remediate this tract of land that has repeatedly been contaminated year after year for 50 years and tested and tested for 70 more years and millions of environmental dollars through grants wanted to find the same result.

Realize it will always be contaminated.