June 5, 2005

Protesters are still waiting to talk to Lockheed
By ROSY WEISER
Sentinel Correspondent

BONNY DOON — In the early hours of a recent morning, a typically quiet dead-end road deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains was the center of action.

It was here, at the Lockheed Martin Corporation’s Bonny Doon facility, that arriving employees were greeted by a lively crowd of activists, holding protest signs and handing out doughnuts wrapped in ribbons imprinted with the words "let’s talk."

Their goal has been to hasten a planned meeting between corporate staff and area residents who are concerned about environmental practices at the site, a 3,800-acre swath of hills, forestland and waterways owned by the nation’s largest defense contractor.

The talks, along with a tour of the closed facility, were promised months ago by company spokesmen.

"We’re trying to open a dialogue. The whole concept is to try to bring awareness to the workers," explained demonstrator Kim Dowling, smiling pleasantly at drivers who sped past stony-faced or honked their horns angrily.

Dowling and up to 20 others have been gathering here once a month since winter when it was cold and still too dark at dawn for anyone to read the "good neighbors talk to each other" and "be true to your word" placards.

"I feel really disappointed that (Lockheed’s) overtures didn’t appear to be sincere," said vigil organizer Lynda Marin, one of the people spearheading the effort to open communication with Lockheed.

"We really want to know what they’re doing there and what their intentions are for that site, because those pieces of information bear on our well-being as neighbors," she said.

Marin is a founding member of Community Concerned About Lockheed Martin, a small, all-volunteer group that’s been pushing the company since early 2003 to disclose details about its past and present environmental practices.

Chief among the group’s list of requests is proof that no dangerous chemicals were pumped into the soil or water at the Bonny Doon location in the years before governmental regulations required stringent documentation of the production and storage of hazardous materials.

June 15 deadline

Lockheed officials maintain plans to provide the community with more information are moving forward as quickly as possible.

"We’re working on any number of projects and programs and addressing a number of urgencies we have to deal with on a daily basis. This is just one of them," said Charles Manor, a Lockheed spokesman based in Sunnyvale.

He said CCALM "deserves our attention" but that opening up a military facility to members of the public requires a lot of careful attention to issues surrounding safety and classification.

"Do we think we can hammer out something successfully? The answer is ‘yes.’ Is there a slight chance this may not happen? The answer is ‘yes,’ but I would tend to err towards the positive side," he continued, adding his company has instituted a "self-imposed" deadline of June 15 to come back to the community with a decision on when and how to proceed with talks.

The Bonny Doon site was purchased by Lockheed more than 50 years ago and has been used for a variety of projects ranging from experiments with high-speed photography to the testing of rocket fuels.

With a greatly pared down work force of fewer than 100 people, its primary function these days is as a testing facility for missile components and subsystems, like fusing devices, according to Steve Tatum, another company spokesman based in Sunnyvale.

He said no radioactive material or weaponry is used or produced at the site.

Opening up some of the beautiful acreage to the community as open space is another goal, said many protesters.

"They have a vast area here. It’s hard to believe they need all of it if all they’re doing is engineering work," said Jane Sooby. "We’d like to reclaim part of it."

Food for thought

The wrought iron gate framed in barbed wire slowly clanged shut, the signal for Sooby and the others to pack up their signs and pile into a handful of cars.

Moments before, a driver had stopped to flash a peace sign and eat a doughnut, one of only two takers this month.

Still, that’s one more than last month, said protesters who didn’t seem in the least bit discouraged as they reflected on the morning.

"They’re softening up. Month by month, they’re softening," said a cheerful Cappy Israel, a member of the Santa Cruz Weapons Inspection Team, an anti-war group that’s jointly organizing the Lockheed vigils.

"I think in the coffee room they’ll be talking about us," she added.

The next vigil starts at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, at the summit of Empire Grade. For details visit www.scwit.org or call Lynda Marin at 662-2242.

Contact Rosy Weiser at rosyweiser (at) sbcglobal.net.