[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS: Jefferson Proving Ground (IN) non-emergency support

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

The former Jefferson Proving Ground (JPG), in southern Indiana, was 
closed under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process in the 
early 1990s. Its 50,000-acre artillery testing range contains some of 
the densest unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination in the country. Most 
of it was turned over (under a renewable real estate permit) to the Fish 
and Wildlife Service (FWS) about nine years ago. FWS's Big Oaks National 
Wildlife Refuge opens up small portions of the property to hunters, 
hikers, and schoolchildren – all of whom go through a UXO education 
program before being allowed into the range buffer zone.

The original estimate for cleaning up the range was several billion 
dollars, so sometime in the late 1990s, someone in Army management 
decided not to spend any money conducting munitions response above the 
firing line. (The Army did extensive remediation in the smaller 
cantonment area.)

In 2000 the Army, the FWS, and the Air Force – which uses a central part 
of the range as a bombing target – signed a Memorandum of Agreement 
(MOA) – defining the reuse of the JPG range and ratifying the decision 
not to fund munitions response there with BRAC cleanup money. Instead, 
the Army (or Army Reserve or National Guard) was supposed to provide 
non-emergency UXO support by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel.

This was never a good idea, because EOD is NOT the same as munitions 
response, which is normally conducted by contractors with the proper 
tools and training. Today, with EOD teams fully occupied in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, it is out of the question.

In May 2008, FWS requested that the Army live up to the MOA by removing 
munitions piles and clearing ordnance from roads, the site of a planned 
visitors' center, and other areas. This request appears to be a 
reasonable, cost-effective way to enable limited, but substantial public 
use of a valuable natural resource.

The Army responded in July, pointing out that the FWS had agreed to 
limit use of the refuge "consistent with existing conditions." It said 
that it would not be able to provide the non-emergency support, and 
instead it recommended that the "FWS seek the funding required to allow 
these projects to be supported by the US Army Corps of Engineers or one 
of a number of UXO contractor ..."

At other BRAC ranges, the Army BRAC cleanup fund would cover such a 
response. No one is proposing the multi-billion-dollar effort originally 
estimated, so it would not break the bank. Still, because of the MOA, 
Congress needs to solve the problem.

The purpose of BRAC was not just to reduce unnecessary military 
operations expenditures, but to make military land and other resources 
available for reasonable reuse. Either Congress should fund the FWS for 
the munitions response or add money to the Army BRAC fund with 
instructions to overturn the 1990s policy decision and the unworkable MOA.


--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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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