Re: Cold War left Utah a contaminated legacy]] (fwd)

[Center for Public Environmental Oversight <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

The full length article can be found at this URL

http://www.desnews.com/newcit/so1amy3b.htm

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Cold War left Utah a contaminated legacy
Cleanup operations at military sites in state vary widely

Last updated 02/28/1998, 12:01 a.m. MT

 By Joe Bauman
 Deseret News staff writer

 World War II was won more than half a century ago. The Cold
War is over. But both left a toxic legacy that has contaminated thousands
of acres of Utah's landscape. Most of the pollution is on federal
military bases, but the contamination spread to private and public
property adjacent to at least two of the facilities. In hundreds of
military experiments and uncounted examples of slovenly disposal practices,
contamination was left in soil and underground water. The military
experimented with or dumped nearly every conceivable dangerous
substance: nerve agent, germs, unexploded bombs, pesticides, organic
compounds, chemical warfare training kits, oil, jet fuel, solvent,
mustard agent, radioactive dust and the debris from staged nuclear
meltdowns. Despite obvious threats to man and nature, the Defense
Department cleanup budget for Utah is less than $85,000 a year. The sum
is "pretty pathetic," in the words of Bob Lockwood, military affairs
aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
 "The absurdity is found in the numbers," said Lockwood,
speaking from Washington, D.C., Friday. For the five fiscal years
1998-2002, the projected cleanup amount for Utah bases is less than half
a million dollars. Meanwhile, the Air Force spends $43 million a year
just to cleanse some of its overseas bases, mostly in Germany, Japan and
Korea. Under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program,
established by Congress in 1986, and the Base Realignment and Closure
Act, dating to 1990, the Defense Department is required to identify,
evaluate and clean up any contamination that it caused.

 The goal, according to Defense Department policy, is "to reduce, in a
cost-effective manner, the risks to human health and the environment."
Yet poor funding for Utah base cleanup slowed the privatizing of a
section of Tooele Army Depot. Conceivably, federal foot-dragging could
delay the handover of Defense Depot Ogden to the Ogden Redevelopment
Agency, scheduled for July 2001. A look at the problem is a study in
contrasts. There are shining successes such as the cleanup at Hill Air
Force Base and instances of glaring negligence. Here is what the Deseret
News has learned about military contamination in Utah: