[CPEO-MEF] FORMER SITES: GAO: "Improvements Needed to Measure Progress of Cleanup of Formerly Used Defense Sites"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Improvements Needed to Measure Progress of Cleanup of Formerly Used Defense Sites

Government Accountability Office
GAO-22-104744
June 16, 2022.

What GAO Found

In fiscal year 2020, the Department of Defense (DOD) estimated that it would cost about $10.2 billion to clean up about 1,700 sites in its Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) program. FUDS consists of two main programs: the Installation Restoration Program (IRP), to address hazardous substances, and the Military Munitions Response Program (MMRP), to address military munitions. Environmental liabilities represent future costs to clean up these sites. FUDS environmental liabilities are about 27 percent for IRP and about 73 percent for MMRP. DOD has obligated over $1 billion for FUDS between fiscal year 2016 and 2020, split roughly equally between IRP and MMRP sites. Since the inception of the FUDS program, DOD has cleaned up 85 percent of IRP sites and 45 percent of MMRP sites. Some costs of future cleanup efforts are uncertain, in part because nearly 1,200 MMRP sites are under investigation, and cleanup remedies are not yet known (see fig.). DOD’s cost estimates for individual sites improve as it completes investigations and identifies specific remedies.

…

For the entire Highlights page and a link to the full report, go to
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104744-highlights.pdf

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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