The mess on military bases

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

TULLAHOMA NEWS
The mess on military bases
January 30, 2004

Last year, the Pentagon asked Congress for exemptions from some
environmental regulations, including a few having to do with cleaning up
the messes left behind at old military sites.
Now we know why.

According to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, removing the hazardous waste and unexploded munitions at all
of the sites still on the Department of Defense's cleanup list could
take from 75 to 330 years. No doubt, loosening the standards and
requiring less cleanup would shave some years off the estimate. But
don't hold the military to that timeline. As it turns out, while 2,307
sites had been identified as of September 2002, Pentagon officials told
auditors that additional sites continue to be identified, and a complete
list probably won't be available for several years.

And there's more: Of the identified sites, 1,387 sites have yet to be
fully assessed as to whether cleanup will be needed. In the 558 cases
where assessment has been completed, 475 were determined to not require
cleanup. Of the remaining 83 where some cleanup was necessary, the
Pentagon has completed 23. This, since 1986, when the Defense
Environmental Restoration Program was created.

And as one might suspect - after all, this is the Pentagon we're talking
about - the cleanup won't come cheap. Officials estimate that cleaning
up the 15 million acres suspected of or known to be contaminated with
military munitions will cost from $8 billion to $35 billion.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1614&dept_id=161055&newsid=10892615&PAG=461&rfi=9

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