Forwarded with permission:

Please attend and urge your friends and colleagues to attend the 7:00 pm
Thursday, June 11, 2009 meeting of the Moffett Field Restoration
Advisory Board (RAB), in Building 943, just outside the main gate, to
make a show of strength of the continuing support for the restoration of
Hangar One. This may be our last best chance to prevent the Hangar from
becoming a neglected skeleton when the Navy removes the contaminated
siding and roof.

In October 2008, the national Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
wrote the Navy:

"We recommend the Navy develop a formal partnership with NASA to develop
a single coordinated delivery schedule to re-skin the hangar and find a
viable reuse for the building. We urge the Navy to apply additional
funds to this effort and to work with NASA and its potential
public-private partners whom also may provide funding to return Hangar 1
to a viable, reusable building. Under such an integrated approach, the
Navy could coordinate the timing of its undertaking with NASA and ensure
a seamless transition from removal action to active reuse with little or
no time where the frame is left without siding or roof."

In January 2009, NASA Ames Deputy Director Lewis Braxton III told the
RAB that NASA was negotiating with the Navy and private parties to find
funding to restore the Hangar. His first-time presence at the RAB
signaled, at long last, Ames management's intent to preserve and reuse
Hangar One.

Things were looking up.

They are not looking so good right now. Reportedly, the Navy and NASA
are not currently negotiating. Hurt by the financial crisis, private
parties are not rushing to invest or contribute. On May 11, U.S. EPA
approved the Navy's planned Removal Action - without restoration. The
Navy plans to remove the siding and roof with no plan in place, let
alone a coordinated reconstruction, to restore the building.

At the RAB, I intend to propose a Hangar One Summit, in which our
Congressional delegation, the agencies and private parties involved at
Moffett Field, and our local governments would discuss, in roundtable
format, ways to piece together the resources necessary to save the
Hangar. I cannot guarantee that such a Summit would restore the Hangar,
but I believe that if such an effort is not made the Hangar skeleton
will sit there, unused, for years.

Please forward this message to interested persons.


Lenny
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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918