Stakeholder's Guide to Munitions Response

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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CPEO's recently published "A Stakeholder's Guide to Munitions Response"
is now available on line at
http://cpeo.org/pubs/cpeo_stakeholders_uxo_guide.doc.

The introductory paragraphs of this 35-page document are pasted below.

LS

***

It's one of America's largest environmental problems, but most people
don't even think of it as an environmental issue. Tens of millions of
acres of land and waterways are contaminated with unexploded ordnance
(UXO), discarded munitions, and explosive constituents and byproducts.
"Military munitions response," in official jargon, refers to the
investigation, remediation, disposal, and management of those substances.

Munitions pose both explosive hazards and toxic risks. By design,
military ranges and other installations that handle them were once
situated in remote locations, but today average Americans are
increasingly coming into contact with munitions and their constituents.
According to the Defense Department, it could cost as little as $25
billion or as much as $200 billion to address that threat on land, and
untold billions more to conduct munitions response at water ranges.

The Department of Defense, which is responsible for the vast majority of
munitions contamination, stumbled into the problem in 1983, when an old
artillery round detonated in a San Diego's Tierrasanta neighborhood,
killing two boys. The Army Corps of Engineers quickly established a
program to deal with "ordnance and explosive wastes," as they were
called at the time, but the program lacked the technology, resources,
and leadership necessary to take on what turned out to be a national,
multi-billion dollar challenge.

Over the past twenty years, the Defense Department-prodded by citizens,
regulatory agencies, and Congress-has gradually improved its
technologies, procedures, and management of munitions response. Even as
work continues to strengthen those areas, it clearly lacks the financial
commitment to take on the enormity of the problem. Furthermore, the
legal authority of environmental regulatory agencies to require cleanup
or even investigation remains in dispute.

While munitions contamination rarely attracts the full attention of the
national news media, it remains a significant, and continuing issue in
communities and regions where it is found-such as Adak (Alaska),
Kaho'olawe (Hawaii), Fort Ord (California), the Lowry Bombing and
Gunnery Range (Colorado), the Jefferson Proving Ground (Indiana), Camp
Butner (North Carolina), Camp Edwards (Massachusetts), the Aberdeen
Proving Ground (Maryland), Spring Valley (DC), and Vieques (Puerto
Rico). The people who live, work, study, and exercise on or near
military ranges, munitions burial sites, and contamination sites are
playing a growing role in shaping the military's response. The
Stakeholders' Guide to Munitions Response is designed both to document
and to strengthen that role.



-- 


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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