LA Papers cover GAO report

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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Report says cleanup cost miscalculated 

GAO: Perchlorate efforts by military are inadequate


By Lisa Friedman
Los Angeles Daily News
June 29, 2004

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon was so sloppy when calculating the cost of
removing perchlorate and other toxins from military sites that its
estimate of $16 billion to $165 billion is almost worthless,
congressional investigators said Tuesday.

Furthermore, the report concluded, the Defense Department has no policy
either for monitoring or cleaning more than 200 chemicals associated
with military munitions from its operational military ranges.

Finally, when it comes to perchlorate - the rocket fuel contaminant that
has been found in 350 California groundwater wells and is predominant in
aerospace-rich Southern California - the Pentagon has not provided money
to fund its own contamination sampling policies.

...

While the GAO found that most installations were not cleaning up known
perchlorate contamination, Edwards was an exception.

Edwards, where perchlorate was first detected in 1997, constructed a
treatment facility. Two 2002 samples found that none of the 12 chemicals
listed on the Environmental Protection Agency's list of unregulated
contaminants, including perchlorate, was detected in any of the
groundwater samples collected from drinking water wells.

...

for the entire article, see

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20943~2242470,00.html

SEE ALSO

GAO Faults Military Policy on Contaminants

The services have failed to clean up perchlorate, other toxic byproducts
of munitions, a report alleges. The Pentagon defends its record.

By Elizabeth Shogren
Los Angeles Times
June 30, 2004

WASHINGTON - A congressional report released Tuesday found that the
military is not taking steps to clean up areas where high levels of the
hazardous chemical perchlorate have been found.

The report, by the General Accounting Office, criticized the military
for lacking a comprehensive policy for testing and cleaning up
perchlorate, a component of fuel used in munitions and rockets, and 19
other chemicals associated with munitions that present serious public
health risks.

Perchlorate has infiltrated drinking water supplies in California and
other states. The chemical can affect the thyroid gland's production of
hormones that are critical to early childhood development.

The GAO report said the military uses 90% of the perchlorate produced in
the United States. The report was released as the Pentagon was seeking
exemptions from the hazardous-waste laws that gave states and the
federal government leverage to force the cleanup of chemicals that
present significant public health risks.

...

for the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-perchlorate30jun30,1,1742260.story?coll=la-home-nation 


-- 


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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