New DERP report and FUDS "success story"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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The Fiscal year 2003 version of the Defense Environmental Restoration
Program Annual Report is now available on line at
http://63.88.245.60/DERPARC_FY03/do/home.

This valuable document is the original source of most data on the
military's toxic cleanup and munitions response programs.

We could not help but notice the Defense Department's convoluted notion
of programmatic success. See
http://63.88.245.60/DERPARC_FY03/do/success, "New Web Site Offers
Information on Formerly Used Defense Sites."

The report states, "A new Web site is making it easier for people to
find the information they need about Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS)
that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is cleaning up."

It's not a bad web site, but it doesn't provide public stakeholders or
environmental regulators with the "information they need." It replaces a
less fancy but much more informative site, the Project Information
Retrieval System (PIRS). Through PIRS, it was possible to read original
documents on FUDS, to learn their precise locations and understand their
operational history as well as any known contamination.

After September 11, 2001, the Army Corps pulled PIRS off the web. It
appears that the federal government is worried that terrorists might
look up where hazardous wastes and unexploded ordnance are threatening
American communities, and move those hazards to other communities.

CPEO and a number of state regulators have asked that PIRS be returned
to the public domain, but it hasn't happened.

Lenny
-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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