RANGE RULE PEIS SCOPE

["Laura Olah" <olah@speagle.com>]

TO:
Range Rule PEIS Docket
c/o Range Rule Information Center
P.O. Box 3430
Gaithersburg, MD 20885-3430

Recommendations for Issues to be Addressed as part of the
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement 
for the Department of Defense Range Rule

prepared by
Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger
E12629 Weigand's Bay South, Merrimac, Wisconsin 53561 (608)643-3124
Laura Olah, Executive Director 

AUGUST 13, 1997

Preface
 The 1992 Federal Facilities' Compliance Act was passed to ensure 
oversight of activities at federal facilities comparable to the regulatory 
oversight of private industry and intended to curtail the catastrophic 
damage to human health and the environmental caused by the U.S. 
military. The military is the nation's largest polluter because until 
now, it has held itself above outside oversight. The environmental 
legacy of the federal government'smission-oriented activities is felt 
in communities throughout the country. Environmental cleanup of the 
24,000 sites on federal facilities in the United States may ultimately 
cost as much as $400 billion and will extend well into the next 
century. By passing the Federal Facilities Compliance Act, Congress 
sent a clear message that external oversight was essential to protect 
human health and the environment from further damage and to force 
compliance with existing waste disposal laws.

Proposed Delegation of Authority from EPA to DoD

 Of critical and foremost concern to community members is the 
disastrous and erroneous presumption by the Department of Defense (DoD) 
that if the Department promulgates Military Range Rules pursuant to 
its own statutory authorities, then DoD regulations would subsequently 
supersede or "sunset" the proposed RCRA regulations. We challenge the 
legality of delegation of authority to the DoD, exempting the 
Department from enforcement actions and compliance with state, local 
and tribal human health and environmental standards, and further 
enabling the military to unilaterally dictate federal environmental and 
human health policy. Moreover, this presumption of power directly 
contradicts the FFCA as Congress specifically charged the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency with developing a 'fair and coherent 
approach to identifying when military munitions become a hazardous waste'.

Perpetuation of Damage to Wisconsin's Human and Natural Resources

 Our community and tribal lands have long suffered the devastating 
consequences of self-regulation, and the DoD's 15 April 1996 proposed
Military Range Rule exemplifies the military's intent to perpetuate 
the very practices that have poisoned our human environment. For 
example, the Department'sintention is to continue use of forested, 
vegetated lands and surface waters as bombing ranges while at the same 
time openly acknowledging the inability to restore or remediate 
existing bombing sites -- compromising human health and sustaining 
irreparable harm to our natural resources. 
 More than 50 percent of Wisconsin's Upper LaCrosse River 
watershed is occupied by Fort McCoy, a massive 93 square mile training 
ground for active and reserve military personnel. Shelling by 
explosives -- including those containing white phosphorus -- has 
transformed the wetlands surrounding the LaCrosse River into a 
cratered moonscape. Aerial photos show trout streams and their banks 
pocked by huge holes left by howitzer shells. Severe erosion of the 
river's fragile sandy bottom has ruined trout habitat and washed tons o
sand downstream off base. In nearby Juneau County, the Air National Guard 
has targeted over 4,600 acres of a thriving county forest ecosystem 
for expansion of the Hardwood Bombing Range -- the Guard plans to add 
more bombing target locations, develop a drop zone and an assault 
landing strip. 
 Without a comprehensive change in current and ongoing military range 
activities, surface waters and forestlands damaged from past and ongoing will 
assuredly never be remediated or even stabilized. The 15 April 1996 draft 
Range Rule states: "Since many of the ranges covered by today's rule
have not been active for many years, the vegetation and growth often 
hinders the ability to detect the Military Munitions. Methods to 
address the problems of dense vegetation, such as deforestation and 
controlled burns, can cause other environmental problems. Underwater 
items often are buried by silt or covered by marine growth. In 
addition, Military Munitions on water ranges can be greatly affect by 
coastal storm sand tidal actions that can immerse the Military 
Munitions in a bed of sediments or uncover Military Munitions that were 
previously embedded in sediments. Furthermore, the depth or condition 
of a water range may make analysis, much less retrieval, effectively 
impossible, or may pose an unreasonable risk to the health and safety 
of range response personnel".

Toxic, Additive, Synergistic and Carcinogenic Risks 

 The current approach to range management disregards the overwhelming 
evidence that in addition to accumulative damage to ecological receptors, 
exposure to emissions from the burning or detonating of military 
munitions poses a deadly and toxic risk to humans. Numerous studies 
indicate communities near munitions disposal sites have a 
significantly higher incidence of cancer deaths. The incidence of 
female non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and male kidney/ureter cancerdeaths 
near Wisconsin's Badger Army Ammunition Plant, for example, are 50% 
higher than the balance of the State. A significant finding of an 
epidemiological study of the communities near Massachusetts' Camp Edwards
was a dose response relationship between residence proximity to the 
nearby artillery training area, where propellant bags were burned, and 
the risk of lung and breast cancer. 
 Emission factors from detonating military munitions include toxic and 
carcinogenic substances such as carbon monoxide, methane, benzene, 2,4 
dinitrotoluene, 2,6 dinitrotoluene, and nitrogen oxides. Dinitrotoluenes 
(DNT's), a component of propellants and found in nearly all conventional 
munitions is a powerful carcinogen. According to Overview of the 
Health Effects of Selected Munitions Chemicals published by the USEPA 
and the Department of the Army, 2,4-DNT is classified B2 (probable 
human carcinogen) and may be a carcinogenic activity promoter -- the 
cancer potency is associated with hepatocellular and mammary glands 
and there is evidence that 2,6-DNT isomer has both initiation and 
promotion activity and, the Army concludes, may be a complete 
carcinogen. 
 Of additional concern are the multiple potential exposure 
pathways for human exposure including inhalation, soil ingestion, 
dermal contact, and food ingestion and the increased and additive 
risks associated with each of these exposure pathways. 
Non-carcinogenic health risks are increased as well: toxic 
metals-contaminated ash, disbursed by open burning, exposes soldiers 
and nearby residents through inhalation, soil ingestion, dermal 
contact, and food ingestion. Other pollutants including NOx, CO, 
VOC's and TSP increase and compound risks to human health. 
 Spotting charges in so-called 'dummy' bombs contain toxic substances 
such as red phosphorus, white phosphorus and titanium tetrachloride. In 
addition to fire hazards, burning red phosphorus emits toxic fumes of 
oxides of phosphorus and can react with reducing materials. White 
phosphorus is dangerously reactive in air and if inhaled can cause 
photophobia with myosis, dilation of pupils, retinal hemorrhage and 
congestion of the blood vessels. 
 The chemical toxicity of Depleted Uranium or DU is extensively 
documented by the U.S. military. According to U.S. Army reports, DU 
and natural uranium have essentially the same chemical behavior and 
toxicity. In the same way that lead, chromium and other heavy metals 
are toxic, DU is chemically toxic and is a significant contributor to 
human health risk. Once internalized, DU readily migrates throughout 
the body, concentrating in the bone, kidney and liver and inducing 
nephrotoxicity, renal failure and other deadly disease. Chronic 
exposure to DU has been associated with placental transfer leading to 
low birth rates, chemically-induced teratogenic effects, and skeletal 
abnormalities in offspring. 
 The proposed rule resists instituting effective range management -- 
including recording keeping, accountability and oversight -- yet warns 
of the inherent dangers in unrestrained and undocumented range 
activities: "... information requirements include the identification 
of the effects of exposure, i.e. the types of injuries accidental 
explosion of a military munition can cause (and) the acute, chronic 
and carcinogenic effects of exposure to other constituents ... 
available data on the constituents known or suspected of being 
on the range are critical to developing a health and safety plan for 
onsite workers".

Deficiencies of Military's Proposed Risk Methods 

 One of the most serious deficiencies of conventional risk 
methods is that they fully ignore the impact of time and of 
accumulating impact to future generations. Consequently, true risks 
as measured through time are vastly underestimated. This 
short-sighted approach provides no accountability or commitment to 
steward current lands and resources for the future. 
 Risks to cultures and cultural values are just as real as risks 
to human health and the environment. This is especially true for 
American Indian and Indigenous communities, whose very culture, 
lifestyles, and identity depend on a clean, healthy environment whose 
integrity has not been violated. Within a compliance agreement 
framework, risk evaluations invariably fail as they do not incorporate 
the spectrum of information related to affected communities. The 
focus tends to be on defining how much pollution or how little cleanup 
is acceptable, rather than on a more holistic approach of more broadly 
defining what is truly desirable and achievable. Current range 
management policy ignores the critical importance of the unspoken 
values, biases, and judgment process embedded in the community and its 
culture.

A Closed Decision-Making Process

 The proposed rule-making process does not provide valid public, 
tribal and regulatory participation. A concurrence role as previously 
proposed by the DoD is a narrow "opportunity to review and comment on 
final decision documents" which affords no authority, no participatory 
power and no appeals process to affected tribes and stakeholders. The 
current process further allows the DoD to edit, delete, control or 
even ignore public, tribal and regulatory concerns. The 15 April 1996 
draft Range Rule states: "Following the comment period, DoD will 
develop written responses to significant comments received during the 
comment period, (DoD will) consider any issues brought out be these 
comments, and (DoD) will prepare a formal decision document and all 
supporting information will become part of the Administrative Record 
for the Military Range, and DoD will mail a copy of the decision 
document to all appropriate government agencies and the current 
Property Owner". Public and Government Agency Involvement is 
completely non-participatory -- reduced to "ask(ing) questions 
and receiv(ing) information on notice of completed, ongoing, and 
planned activities".

Disregard for Environmental Justice Principles

 One of the most disgraceful aspects of the proposed rulemaking 
process is its complete disregard for environmental justice 
principles. This injustice indeed compounds risks to the human 
environment by disabling and disempowering community and tribal 
members in decisions that will most assuredly and disproportionately 
damage their health, their well-being and their environment. Moreover, 
virtually all response actions previously proposed by the DoD are 
triggered by risk as defined by the military, elevating existing health 
and environmental risks to the very communities we should be protecting. 
Communities and tribes, particularly those that are not well organized, 
will be placed at greatest risk as this process denies them protection 
afforded by regulatory compliance, denies a legal appeals process, 
denies comparable access to information and denies valid participation 
in the decision-making process. In fact this process may effectively 
target the very communities intended to benefit by President Clinton's 
1994 Environmental Justice Executive Order and is in every respect an 
injustice to ourselves and the generations to come.

Laura Olah, Executive Director 
Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger
E12629 Weigand's Bay South
Merrimac, Wisconsin 53561
olah@speagle.com
Phone (608)643-3124 Fax (608)643-0005
Website http://www.speagle.com/cswab