2007 CPEO Military List Archive

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>
Date: 8 Mar 2007 21:53:17 -0000
Reply: cpeo-military
Subject: [CPEO-MEF] Missile Defense Environmental Impact Statement
 
In October, 2004 I submitted comments to the Army's Missile Defense Agency on its Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Ballistic Missile Defense System. I (and others) warned of the environmental dangers of a massive increase in rocket launches using ammonium perchlorate-based propellant. See http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/BMDS-PEIS.doc.

Now the Agency has issued it Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (January, 2007), containing replies to the multitude of comments. See http://www.mda.mil/peis/html/home.html. Most pertinent to my concern is the response on page K-296 (page 301 of the Volume 3 PDF file). It states:

"The BMDS PEIS considers the use of a wide variety of propellants including three types of boosters, pre-fueled liquid propellant, non-pre-fueled liquid propellant, and solid propellant boosters. The environmental impacts of each of these three types of boosters are presented in Section 4.1.1.2 of the PEIS. In addition, Appendix M includes DoD-wide research initiatives under the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program that have focused on the development of more environmentally-friendly launch technologies, such as missile propellants that do not use ammonium perchlorate as an oxidizer. While these alternate propellant formulations have showed promise, a significant amount of development remains to optimize the formulation for specific missile systems. In addition, these formulations will go through a lengthy and stringent performance and safety certification process. Since these alternative technologies are in a research and development phase and are not yet advanced enough for their use to be reasonably foreseeable under NEPA, they are not analyzed in this PEIS. The MDA may consider the use of these alternative environmentally-friendly technologies as they become available in the future and meet the operational test requirements for the BMDS."

Lenny

--


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

_______________________________________________
Military mailing list
Military@list.cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org/mailman/listinfo/military

  Prev by Date: [CPEO-MEF] MEW Study Area TAG RFP
Next by Date: [CPEO-MEF] Southern Maryland encroachment
  Prev by Thread: [CPEO-MEF] MEW Study Area TAG RFP
Next by Thread: [CPEO-MEF] Southern Maryland encroachment

CPEO Home
CPEO Lists
Author Index
Date Index
Thread Index