Another MMR

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

ANOTHER MMR

It's about as far as one can go in the U.S. from the Massachusetts
Military Reservation, but the Makua Military Reservation, on the
northwest coast of Oahu, Hawaii, has similar problems. Makua is a U.S.
Army training range with an open burning/open detonation (OB/OD)
facility, and like the Massachusetts site, its activities are unpopular
with many of its neighbors.

According to Environment Hawai'i (December, 1998), "Six years have
passed since the OB/OD unit at Makua has operated as a hazardous waste
facility regulated under RCRA [the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act], yet neither the Army nor the EPA has made any real effort to
address its closure until now." 

The publication explains, "In 1992, the Army reported that it destroyed
two tons of RCRA-regulated waste munitions at the Makua OB/OD unit.
However, the Army continued to claim that the vast majority of waste
burned at the OB/OD facility was not subject to RCRA regulation, even
though it was chemically indistinguishable from the RCRA waste. The
non-regulated waste, the Army later acknowledged, amounted to any
additional 50 tons of munitions burned at the OB/OD facility over the
same reporting period."

"In September [1998], the EPA proposed to delay closing the OB/OD
facility, claiming that this delay would avoid having the cleaned-up
site be recontaminated by the Army's ongoing training activities on
adjoining land and the site itself, necessitating a second clean-up
action."

Officials don't consider contamination at the OB/OD site to be a threat
to public health, but site neighbors are still pushing for cleanup of
the site. After hearing from the public at a September 30 hearing, EPA
extended the official comment period to mid-December. Members of the
community have asked for independent technical assistance, but until a
cleanup program is established, they don't qualify for help.

Community members have pointed out that the Army's lease on Makua
expires in 2029, and many of them would like to shut down the range
earlier.

Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org