RANGE RESEARCH

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>

RANGE RESEARCH
There are estimated ten to twenty million acres of land in the U.S. 
potentially contaminated with explosive munitions from past military 
activity. It's an overwhelming figure, but the estimates include vast 
amounts of territory that probably do not require cleanup or clearance. 
There is still no efficient way to characterize large areas to 
determine if they require further study or clearance, but the Army has 
found that site visits can dramatically cut the amount of land to 
investigate.
The Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District carried out a 
systematic archives project from 1990 to 1994: "Beginning with 1.3 
million acres from [Inventory Project Reports], archives investigators 
found an additional .3 million acres with potential contamination. 
Then, through site visits, investigators whittled that 1.6 million 
acres to less than 60,000 acres. That meant than only 4 percent of all 
the suspect land needed removal actions or further study." Note that 
"removal action" is a legal term that does not necessarily indicate the 
actual removal or unexploded ordnance.
Source: OE NEWSLETTER, Huntsville Mandatory Center of Expertise, U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers, July-September, 1995.