DOD ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY REPORT

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

DEFENSE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY REPORT
For several years, the Annual Report of the Defense Environmental 
Restoration Program or Cleanup Program has served as the original 
source of most nationally available information about the Pentagon's 
known hazardous waste contamination and its efforts to clean up those sites.
In 1995 the Defense Environmental Security office published for the 
first time a counterpart describing its environmental activities 
related to present, as opposed to past, operations. The 300-page-plus 
"Defense Environmental Quality Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 1994" 
for the first time presents a comprehensive description of the 
military's programs for environmental compliance, pollution prevention, 
and resource management, as well as support activities in training and 
technology development.
Like other DOD reports, the Environmental Quality Report is to some 
degree an exercise in public relations. That is, it only has good 
things to say about the military's environmental behavior. 
Nevertheless, it demonstrates convincingly that environmental quality 
programs are big business at the Pentagon, funded at $2.6 billion in 
fiscal year 1995, several hundred million dollars more than the cleanup 
budget. 
Perhaps more important, it illustrates how environmental activities, 
from improving waste treatment to the use of alternative fueled 
vehicles to the preservation of native burial grounds, have been 
integrated into Department of Defense operations. In introducing the 
report, Defense Secretary William Perry wrote, "The Environmental 
Quality Program is an integral part of the overall mission of the 
Department of Defense. The program supports our operational readiness, 
protects the quality of life for our personnel, and contributes to our 
efforts to achieve economic efficiency through modernization."
Like the cleanup report, the Environmental Quality Report, contains 
massive appendices. It lists, by installation, both the personnel and 
funding requirements for environmental quality programs over each of 
the next five years. Such numbers presents a useful picture of the 
magnitude of such programs, but there is no way from the appendices to 
determine which types of environmental quality activity, and to what 
degree, are being supported at any individual facility.