Army Col. Daniel Thomas doesn’t care much for “history lessons.”
As Fort Meade’s new commander, Thomas faces major issues that preceded him by many years: Base Realignment and Closure, the Army’s fight with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over cleaning contamination and barracks caked in mold.
On issues such as the environment, Thomas said his focus is on the present and future course, not past actions.
“I know what I was doing two years ago, and it wasn’t environmental cleanup of the Army, but I’m doing it now,” said Thomas, who met with reporters for the first time Friday during a luncheon at the Odenton installation.
“What I want to know is what is the status and what are we doing about it? This history lesson … goes into the higher level of public relations that I think is the kind of thing that doesn’t do the public a whole lot of good and just stirs up emotions — and I’m just not going to do that.”
The Army is fighting the EPA on the methods to clean up 18 sites where unexploded bombs or leaking chemicals have contaminated soil and low-level groundwater.
The Army said it has spent $83 million to clean up 33 sites and will continue to do so without the EPA’s mandate, which Army officials have said will be too costly and time-consuming. Meanwhile, the fort has been on a federal cleanup list for nearly a decade.
“If I ever became aware, from a personal and professional standpoint, of a threat to public health that was identified as unacceptable, I would attack it like I would attack an enemy,” Thomas said.
“I take this issue very seriously as a citizen and a soldier. … I want to be as open and transparent as possible.”
While the cleanup has been the most recent headline involving Fort Meade, the greatest issue is BRAC and the 5,000 new jobs coming under Thomas’ watch.
In answering reporters’ questions, Thomas centered around the most prevailing BRAC issue — transportation — as the need for bigger roads, more mass transit and easier access to the fort concern most officials on both sides of the fort gates.
“People think that getting a bus through the gate can be real difficult, but we do it with school buses every day,” he said. “We can facilitate getting people in and out of the base in a manner that is not so difficult.”
He spoke of openness to the community, as Anne Arundel officials have been concerned about the effect of leasing property to outside contractors on county roads.
Thomas said his approach will be to inform the community on what he and the installation will do to handle the BRAC influx, and he expects the same from county and state officials.
Another issue facing Fort Meade is the barracks housing the military students of the Defense Information School. Some of four 1950s-era barracks were infested with mold and had faulty plumbing.
Thomas said he toured the barracks with Brig. Gen. Dennis Rogers, head of the Installation Management Command, four weeks ago.
Rogers had seen the barracks in April with the previous commander, Col. Kenneth McCreedy, and noticed a significant, positive change on his second visit, Thomas said.
The Marines will be moved soon from their barracks to the Air Force barracks, which was recently renovated, Thomas said. “Anybody who looks at the status of where we’re at now would feel much better of how far we’ve come.”
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