[CPEO-MEF] GAO's UXO Report

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The U.S. General Accounting Office report, "Environmental Liabilities:
DOD Training Range Cleanup Cost Estimates Are Likely Understated," April
11, 2001 (GAO-01-479) reinforces other critiques of the Defense
Department ordnance response program. In the report, GAO finds that the
Department doesn't have a handle on potential cleanup costs because it
has no complete inventory of ranges and lacks a consistent cost methodology.

To improve the situation, GAO recommends "that the Secretary of Defense
designate a focal point with the appropriate authority to oversee and
manage the reporting of training range liabilities."

GAO relates estimates from each of the armed services:

Army
  Transferred Ranges  (Formerly Used Defense Sites) $8 billion
  Closed Ranges (on active facilities) $4.9 billion
  Transferring Ranges (base closures) $231 million
Navy - $53.6 million
Air Force - $829 million

In my opinion, these figures grossly understate the cost of cleanup
because, as far as we on the outside know, there has been no
authenticated or systematic Defense-wide identification of closed
ranges, and because at many sites the estimates are based upon the
expectation that the Defense Department can simply walk away without
conducting the cleanup of impact areas - at the Jefferson Proving Ground
or Adak Naval Air Station, for example.

On the other hand, new technologies may significantly reduce the cost of
response by cutting the numbers of false anomalies or by screening out
uncontaminated property associated with ranges. 

The 918K PDF GAO Report may be downloaded from
http://www.gao.gov/audit.htm.

-- 


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

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