>From Environmental Science and Technology, September 22, 2004
Note especially the following points:
- "Cohen tells ES&T that DOD plans to resubmit the
exemptions during the next congressional session. An internal document
leaked to the press states that exemptions to other environmental laws
are also being considered. “There was a lot of _expression_ of
legislative support,” Cohen says."
- "Nevertheless, the military has been desperately seeking cases where
environmental regulations conflict with military readiness. DOD Deputy
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz sent a letter in 2003 to all the armed
services asking for cases where environmental regulations were
interfering with national security or military readiness. To date,
Cohen tells ES&T, not a single instance has been found."
--
Steve Taylor
National Organizer
Military Toxics Project
"Networking for Environmental Justice"
www.miltoxproj.org
(207) 783-5091
The authoritative voice of the environmental research community.
Policy News - September 22, 2004
Are environmental exemptions for the U.S. military justified?
During the early 1990s, a fight began heating up in North Carolina.
Environmentalists sued the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for failing
to protect the habitat of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker at
Fort Bragg, home of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. Both sides
were meeting to try to work out a compromise, when the post commander
strode into the room and knocked the environmentalists right out of
their seats.
 |
| In 1996, the U.S.
Defense Department released this poster, the first in a series touting
environmental awareness. Today, the military claims that measures to
protect plover habitat threaten marine training and war readiness. |
|
|
“I’ve been a warrior for all these years,” the general reportedly
said, “and it’s my duty to protect this country and all its
inhabitants, including its endangered species.”
This opening statement changed the whole debate, says Ray Clark,
then the Assistant for Environment with the Army. With about 161,000
acres of mostly longleaf pine, Fort Bragg soon began partnering with
local conservation groups to buy land along the edges of the post.
These buffer zones helped protect both army training areas and the
woodpecker habitat. The program quickly became a top priority as part
of DOD’s press campaign to sell the military as a fighting force that
not only protected America from threats abroad but also preserved the
environment at home.
How times have changed. Since President George W. Bush came into
office, DOD has won exemptions from sections of the laws that protect
endangered species, migratory birds, and marine mammals. The department
is now trying to win exemptions from laws covering toxic Superfund
sites, solid-waste management, and clean air. According to notes from a
2002 DOD meeting leaked to the press, the fight for these exemptions
will “require a multiyear campaign.” As a result, DOD is now battling
environmentalists and other government officials on several fronts.
Many critics of the administration say that the campaign is more about
undermining environmental laws than protecting military readiness.
The stakes are huge and highly complex. Of the 158 federal
facilities on Superfund’s National Priorities List, DOD is responsible
for 129; the projected cleanup cost for these sites is more than $14
billion. On the other hand, DOD invests $4 billion annually in
environmental protection and provides more funding for marine-mammal
research than any other federal agency. And with 25 million acres of
property, DOD houses the greatest concentration of endangered species
on any federal land. So while critics complain about the military, they
also tip their hats. The problem, they say, is that elements within the
current Bush Administration and the Pentagon are leading an unfounded
campaign against environmental laws.
“The armed services have a history they can be proud of,” says
Clark. From the Nixon to Clinton administrations, military leaders were
told they had a responsibility to balance military readiness with
environmental protection, he tells ES&T. “This
administration is a departure from that value set,” he adds.
However, others see it differently. In a Senate hearing in April
2003, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-OK) said the exemptions are needed to
protect the lives of service men and women. “Rather than seeking
compromise, environmental groups file lawsuits, many of which could
seriously undermine training and readiness…. But despite their
unfortunate rhetoric, this proposal we are considering today is
balanced, bipartisan, rooted in common sense, and good for the
environment.”
Numerous current and former DOD officials and military leaders say
that change began in the late 1990s when the Center for Biological
Diversity, an environmental group, filed a lawsuit against the U.S.
Navy under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The center cited the navy for
killing migratory birds during bombing on Farallon de Medinilla, a
small, uninhabited Pacific island. In an interview with ES&T,
DOD General Counsel for the Environment, Ben Cohen, said that pilot
skills degrade as aircraft carriers transit across the Pacific from the
United States. “It was the last place in the region where carrier
aircraft could train as they prepared to enter the theater of
operation,” he says.
At the same time that the Navy feared losing the Farallon as a
training site, other groups were suing the government to protect
habitat for endangered species at another naval installation,
California’s Camp Pendleton. Fearing more lawsuits, DOD sources tell ES&T
that a group of naval lawyers began pushing for legislative protection
against lawsuits when President Bush came into office; his political
appointees saw a green light to roll back environmental oversight after
September 11, 2001.
A former high-ranking DOD environmental official, who asked for
anonymity, says there are real concerns with endangered species at
Pendleton but that they could have been easily handled if the DOD
focused on other problems, such as suburban growth around military
bases. “That has not been the priority of this administration. They
have focused on how to get relief from environmental laws because they
believe they have a favorable political climate.”
The final straw for the Navy, say DOD officials, was lawsuits by
environmental groups to curtail the use of certain types of sonar.
Scientists are not exactly certain how sonar affects marine mammals,
but since 1960, numerous stranding incidents have occurred, involving
mostly beaked whales, when navy sonar was in the area. In March 2000,
17 whales beached themselves in the Bahamas at a time when navy sonar
was being used. Six later died. “It appeared from all evidence that the
whales attempted to get out of the sonar and then swam onto the beach,”
says Dan Schregardus, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment in
the Navy.
In September 2002, 14 whales became stranded on the Canary Islands
just 4 hours after the onset of a naval training exercise. Necropsies
found tissue damage consistent with trauma due to in vivo gas bubble
formation (Nature 2003, 425, 575).
“It’s not clear if the sound is so loud it damages the animals
directly or if it triggers a behavioral response so that the animals
surface too quickly and get something like the bends,” says Peter
Tyack, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
“In the end, we know there is some correlation between these sounds and
the animals ending up on the beach.”
While beachings of whales have captured headlines, there are other
incidents where environmental laws and military training could be in
conflict. Cohen cites Fort Richardson in Alaska as a prime example of a
“potential train wreck.” In April 2002, a coalition of public-interest
groups and Native American tribes sent a notice of intent to file a
lawsuit against DOD for poisoning water with toxins leaching from
unexploded munitions. Cohen says DOD lawyers fear such third-party
lawsuits could force EPA to shut down live-fire ranges because the
training harms the wildlife and endangers water supplies.
“It’s not responsible for us to wait until we’re actually shut down
at a vital installation, before we go to Congress and tell them there
are troubles,” says Cohen.
However, last year former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman
told Congress that there have been no incidents where the agency was
forced to interfere with military readiness. “I’m not aware of any
particular area where environmental protection regulations are
preventing the desired training,” she testified.
This was made clear during a packed congressional hearing in April
at which the DOD exemptions were strongly opposed by a host of groups,
including a group of 39 state attorneys general, local water agencies,
numerous state coalitions, and environmental groups. Under heated
questioning by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), DOD Deputy Under Secretary Ray
DuBois admitted that there was not a single incident where Superfund,
solid-waste, or clean-air legislation had interfered with military
readiness.
There are other indications that the military has not been affected
by environmental regulations. In the late 1990s, David Henkins, an
Earthjustice lawyer who participated in the suit over bombing activity
on the Farallon, succeeded in stopping training on the Makua military
range on Hawaii’s Oahu Island for violations of environmental laws. For
three years, the military was unable to use the range and regularly
told judges and the press that lack of training was degrading
readiness. Yet, when Henkins reviewed the military training records
from the local commanders, they were pretty much the same: “ready to
perform our wartime mission.”
Nevertheless, the military has been desperately seeking cases where
environmental regulations conflict with military readiness. DOD Deputy
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz sent a letter in 2003 to all the armed
services asking for cases where environmental regulations were
interfering with national security or military readiness. To date,
Cohen tells ES&T, not a single instance has been found.
But military activities have affected the environment in numerous
instances. Forty DOD sites have contaminated groundwater or surface
water with perchlorate. In both Massachusetts and Maryland, DOD
contamination of groundwater has forced the shutdown of local wells.
The contamination in Maryland has resulted in numerous underground
toxin plumes originating from two local military installations.
Thousands of testing wells now dot the Cape Cod area, monitoring
pollution underneath this famous Massachusetts vacation spot; the total
cleanup cost is projected at about $1 billion.
“The question becomes what [DOD] would have done if they hadn’t been
required to meet [environmental] statutes,” says Ed Eichner, a
hydrologist with the Cape Cod Commission. “The main issue here, after
stripping away all the details, is that the DOD wants to become
self-regulating,” charges Sylvia Lowrance, former top administrator for
enforcement at EPA.
Cohen tells ES&T that DOD plans to resubmit the
exemptions during the next congressional session. An internal document
leaked to the press states that exemptions to other environmental laws
are also being considered. “There was a lot of _expression_ of
legislative support,” Cohen says. —PAUL D. THACKER