LANDMARK REPORT ON UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE REMEDIATION

In early May the Department of Defense (DoD) cleared for release a landmark report, "Unexploded Ordnance Remediation," by a task force of the Defense Science Board (DSB). The report is significant for two reasons: First, it makes clear that the Defense Department finally takes the task of remediating former domestic munitions impact ranges seriously. Second, the Defense Department -- particularly the Environmental Security office -- is already moving to implement a number of the task force's recommendations. As soon as we receive the final version of the report, we will let our readers know how to obtain copies.

The Defense Science Board is an official Pentagon advisory group. This task force consisted primarily of retired generals and former Defense political appointees. CPEO's Lenny Siegel was also a member.

The task force explored the technology, organization, and financing of UXO response. It was briefed on the debates over the regulatory framework -- the Military Munitions Rule and the pending Range Rule -- but it was not tasked to address legal issues. Perhaps that's why it was so productive.

The DSB found that an estimated 15 million land acres, on about 1,500 sites in the U.S., may contain UXO. "Because the suspect sites have not been surveyed, there is great uncertainty about the actual size of the UXO problem. However, even if only 5% of suspect acreage needs cleanup, remediation costs would still be high (possibly exceeding 15 billion dollars) and times would be long (possibly exceeding several decades to complete) using current technologies." Actual cleanup, at former defense sites and closing bases -- excluding the Hawaiian island of Kaho'olawe -- is currently being funded at about $125 million a year. About $20 million more is dedicated to UXO research and development.

The task force found that the Defense Department, as a whole, lacks specific cleanup-goals, objectives, or management plans for UXO. It therefore recommended the establishment of a focal point within the Environmental Security office to address the Department's unmet management responsibilities. It suggested that the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security [DUSD(ES)] (currently Sherri Wasserman Goodman) "take the policy lead for DoD UXO remediation efforts, in coordination with other relevant DoD components."

Line Items

The report endorsed stable funding. It said the Environmental Security office should "Identify the needed Congressional actions that will drive UXO requirements for an improved DoD program, including the likely FUDS/BRAC sites with high Congressional priority and those closed ranges that should be converted to more productive uses.... Therefore, we recommend the establishment of a closed range UXO remediation line item in the Environmental Security budget. This line item will offer the DoD and Congress the opportunity to determine the proper level of effort for UXO response. . . it will make it easier to apply relative risk principles to the allocation of UXO project money without comparison to totally different kinds of risks." It actually suggested two UXO line items: one for remediation and one for research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E).

Risk Management

DSB called for a two-stage risk management process, "the first stage focusing on immediate responses to UXO risks, and the second designed to provide subsequent responses to risk." Site managers, it said, should prepare a "site master plan that establishes the end state for each location that is identified for clean-up, including what should be left in place and what should be cleaned to an agreed upon level to accommodate future land use."

Priority System

It proposed that the Defense Department "Develop a risk-based priority system, similar to the Relative Risk Site Evaluation Framework for hazardous waste sites, to weigh the many competing UXO needs, based upon explosive risks, other human health risks, ecological concerns, and other pertinent factors, including current and future property use. Such priority determinations should be made in consultation with environmental regulatory agencies and the affected public."

Technology

As an entity of the Defense Science Board, the task force spent most of its time learning about current and proposed UXO response technologies, and it drew strong conclusions. The task force found that currently fielded technology -- primarily "mag and flag" -- as well as many current research programs are not good enough to meet the challenge. It noted that the high cost of subsurface range clearance is driven by the huge number of "false alarms," which trigger an equally large number of excavations of items other than UXO. DSB recommended a two-track approach to technology development:

"The first track calls for the aggressive development and demonstration of a baseline system-of-systems approach to reduce the false alarms by about a factor of 10. In our view, it would be appropriate to conduct a competitive effort by at least two industrial systems integration teams. The development and demonstration efforts are expected to require 3-5 years to achieve the objective and would include demonstration of integrated, ground and aerial precision navigation, aerial survey detections of surface and near surface objects, vehicular and man portable equipment to detect and categorize objects and the appropriate computer architecture, data base and processing algorithms. The Task Force emphasizes contractor integrated, to assure common communications, navigation, data bases, etc. Over the next 3 to 5 years we would expect these activities to average about $20M per year."

"The second track would involve an aggressive research and development effort, running in parallel with the effort described above. The objectives would be to explore some avenues which have received too little attention in the past (e.g., seismic/acoustic, neutron activation, synthetic dog's nose, motion of subsurface objects over time, etc.) and also to conduct research on those pacing elements used in the baseline approach which will benefit from continuing and competitive research, such as the characterization of clutter at different sites, clutter rejection algorithms, design of sensor arrays, etc. The Task Force proposes that this second track be performed largely by universities coupled with industry, and also funded at about $20M per year."

"Since the current UXO-related R&D is funded at about $20M per year, the proposed program can be judged as about a two-fold increase. The basic justification for such an increase is that the DoD is spending about $125M per year on UXO remediation using a very inefficient approach. Current understanding of the physics and experimental data to date suggest that by developing the proper tools, DoD will save about $60-70M per year. As such, it would be a good and urgent investment."

"Once the baseline program demonstrates the required reduction in the false alarm rate, the Task Force recommends that DoD rely on industry to commercialize the technologies into systems for use in UXO remediation. It will be important to continue the second track activities because of its value to DoD range clearing and countermine operations, specifically the detection of non-metallic landmines and the detection and characterization of more deeply buried objects (5-20 feet)."

The task force did not recommend increasing the total resources for UXO remediation and research at this time. Rather, it suggested that additional research and development funds be taken from existing, inefficient range clearance activities. This may prove to be one of its most controversial recommendations. (To win external acceptance for a reduction in actual clearance funding, the Defense Department must convince communities and regulators that it is following the two-stage risk management strategy: greatly reducing imminent risks and promising to come back with better technology later.)

In keeping with its finding that there is no "silver bullet" -- a single technology capable of addressing all remediation needs -- the task force provided an appendix listing and briefly evaluating a number of alternative technological approaches.

Pollution Prevention

To reduce future UXO clearance problems, the task force recommended that "render safe" and disposal procedures be incorporated early in the design of future munitions. It also called for better data collection and the use of "fire-finding" instruments or taggants to aid in the detection and identification of ordnance used in the future.

Contracting

Since UXO clean-up is not a "DoD core competence," the task force concluded that "invigorating private sector involvement is critical to the success of the DoD UXO clean-up effort. But to encourage private sector participation, a UXO remediation 'market' must first be more evident." To promote greater private sector interest, particularly from large firms which may be "deep-pocket" targets for litigation, the task force recommended the use of existing regulations to "relieve private companies of unreasonable third party liability and indemnification burdens."

Because current contracting procedures provide little incentive for the deployment of advanced technologies and integrated systems management, the task force also recommended "employing performance/objective/criteria-based contracting procedures that provide incentives to the private sector to participate more efficiently and aggressively in the UXO clean-up effort."

Personnel

The task force noted the reliance of cleanup contractors on a small number of retired military explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialists. It supported, therefore, the creation of non-DoD training programs for UXO technicians.

Restoration

The task force found that no standard currently exists to mitigate soil contamination or to reforest areas where deforestation is part of cleanup. It said, "water and air surrounding or contained within a UXO site may need continuous monitoring to confirm the safety of the site and to protect the communities surrounding it." It recommended that remediation plans consider future restoration needs and the development of standards to address soil contamination and reforestation.

Other Recommendations

The task force also strongly endorsed regulator and public involvement in the range remediation process, the accelerated remediation of ranges on Indian lands, actions to minimize public exposure, suitable processing of range scrap (which sometimes contains residual explosives or even live UXO), and the creation of a risk management strategy and a funding stream for responses at closed ranges within active Defense installations.

Implementation

The Defense Department has been aware of the recommendations of the Defense Science Board for several months, and in fact many of the task force's ideas grew from suggestions generated within the Department. Consequently, many of its proposals are already being advanced. For example, the Defense Department has convened a team to consider performance-based contracting procedures and contractor indemnification. Another team is developing an occupational skills standard for UXO remediation technicians. In its formal release of the task force report, the Pentagon is expected to summarize actions already underway.

The Department of Defense would not have taken the UXO threat seriously in the absence of pressure from Congress, regulatory agencies, and the public at large, but the Defense Science Board report makes clear that UXO remediation is gathering significant momentum within the Department. Using the same type of analysis that gave the U.S. the capability to detect submerged Soviet submarines, the Defense Science Board has come up with a long-term strategy to address the UXO problem -- that is, to protect, in a cost-effective way, the American public from literally millions of "time bombs" within our midst.

One expects, of course, that as the nation pursues such a strategy there will be continuing conflicts over funding, organization of the UXO effort within the Defense Department, and as has been evident for some time, regulatory authority.

TRI TO APPLY TO ORDNANCE DEMIL

According to the Army Environmental Center, in the year 2000 Army installations will for the first time be required to report toxic chemical releases from a number of ordnance-related activities, including the open burning and open detonation of military munitions. Reporting will be through the national Toxics Release Inventory program, supervised by U.S. EPA. Technically, facilities will be required to report ordnance waste treatment, disposal, recycling, recovery, and reuse activities. Those activities not considered waste treatment, because of the definitions in EPA's military munitions rule, will not be covered.

This is a major step forward, and TRI compliance in other areas suggests that the mere prospect of reporting will lead to better waste management practices and even pollution prevention. But don't hold your breath waiting for the information. The deadline for reporting year 2000 data is late in 2001, and then EPA has to massage the data before releasing it to the public.

NATURAL ATTENUATION FORUM

Save the dates of August 3-4, 1998. CPEO is organizing a National Stakeholders' Forum on Natural Attenuation, to be held in San Francisco. We hope to confirm the dates soon. We expect attendance from community representatives, federal and state agencies, academia, and industry. We will be providing a limited number of travel scholarships for public stakeholders.

CAREER/PRO IS NOW CPEO

CAREER/PRO has changed its name to the Center for Public Environmental Oversight (CPEO). The new name should help explain what we are: An organization that provides information and otherwise promotes public participation in the oversight of environmental activities, including but not limited to the remediation of federal facilities (particularly military bases), private "Superfund" sites, and Brownfields.

CAREER/PRO was established about five years ago as the California Economic Recovery and Environmental Restoration Project. Project founders planned to focus on training workers to clean up closing military bases here in the Bay Area. While that agenda remains important to us, we are now much more engaged in national support for public oversight.

We remain a project of the San Francisco Urban Institute at San Francisco State University. We will be changing our Internet addresses, but we expect to go through an extended transition period during which the old references will continue to work as well as the new. We may still be contacted at our existing address and phone numbers -- they remain the same.

CPEO ON THE INTERNET

In addition to this newsletter, CPEO maintains two Internet newsgroups: The first is the Electronic Clearinghouse on Base Cleanup, Closure, and Conversion, focused on military environmental issues; the second is the Brownfields Internet Forum. They are both available internationally for free to anyone with an Internet address. We post information as we receive it, later selecting and updating material from the Clearinghouse for this newsletter.

Both newsgroups also enable direct communication among activists, other community stakeholders, academics, and industry representatives. Furthermore, high officials at the Pentagon, U.S. EPA, and numerous state agencies regularly read the newsgroups, so if you want policy-makers to know what's going on in your home town, this is a quick and easy way to get your message out.

Both CPEO newsgroups -- <cpro.military> and <cpro.brownfields> -- may be directly accessed on the IGC Internet service, but most subscribers simply send and receive E-mail to and from our listservers. To subscribe, just contact CPEO at 415/904-7751, and tell us your Internet address, or E-mail us at cpeo@cpeo.org.