[CPEO-MEF] CLENAUP: GAO Testimony on Defense Environmental Restoration Program

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Environmental Contamination: Information on the Funding and Cleanup 
Status of Defense Sites

Anu Mittal
Government Accountability Office (GAO-10-547T)
March 17, 2010


Summary

Under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP), the 
Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for cleaning up about 5,400 
sites on military bases that have been closed under the Base Realignment 
and Closure (BRAC) process, as well as 21,500 sites on active bases and 
over 4,700 formerly used defense sites (FUDS), properties that DOD owned 
or controlled and transferred to other parties prior to October 1986. 
The cleanup of contaminants, such as hazardous chemicals or unexploded 
ordnance, at BRAC bases has been an impediment to the timely transfer of 
these properties to parties who can put them to new uses. The goals of 
DERP include (1) reducing risk to human health and the environment (2) 
preparing BRAC properties to be environmentally suitable for transfer 
(3) having final remedies in place and completing response actions and 
(4) fulfilling other established milestones to demonstrate progress 
toward meeting program performance goals. This testimony is based on 
prior work and discusses information on (1) how DOD allocates cleanup 
funding at all sites with defense waste and (2) BRAC cleanup status. It 
also summarizes other key issues that GAO has identified in the past 
that can impact DOD's environmental cleanup efforts.

DOD uses the same method to propose funding for cleanup at FUDS, active 
sites, and BRAC sites; cleanup funding is based on DERP goals and is 
generally proportional to the number of sites in each of these 
categories. Officials in the Military Departments, Defense Agencies, and 
FUDS program, who are responsible for executing the environmental 
restoration activities at their respective sites, formulate cleanup 
budget proposals using the instructions in DOD's financial management 
regulation and DERP environmental restoration performance goals. DERP's 
goals include target dates for reaching the remedy-in-place or response 
complete (RIP/RC) milestone. For example, for sites included under the 
first four BRAC rounds, the goal is to reach the RIP/RC milestone at 
sites with hazardous substances released before October 1986 by 2015 and 
for sites in the 2005 BRAC round by 2014. DOD's military components plan 
cleanup actions that are required to meet DERP goals at the installation 
or site level. DOD requires the components to assess their inventory of 
BRAC and other sites by relative risk to help make informed decisions 
about which sites to clean up first. Using these relative risk 
categories, as well as other factors, the components set more specific 
restoration targets each fiscal year to demonstrate progress and prepare 
a budget to achieve those goals and targets. DOD data show that, in 
applying the goals, and targets, cleanup funding has generally been 
proportional to the number of sites in the FUDS, active, and BRAC site 
categories. For example, the total number of BRAC sites requiring 
cleanup is about 17 percent of the total number of defense sites 
requiring cleanup, while the $440.2 million obligated to address BRAC 
sites in fiscal year 2008 is equivalent to about 25 percent of the total 
funds obligated for this purpose for all defense waste sites. GAO's past 
work has also shown that DOD's preliminary cost estimates for cleanup 
generally tend to rise significantly as more information becomes known 
about the level of contamination at a specific site. In addition, three 
factors can lead to delays in cleanup. They are (1) technological 
constraints that limit DOD's ability to detect and cleanup certain kinds 
of hazards, (2) prolonged negotiations with environmental regulators on 
the extent to which DOD's actions are in compliance with regulations and 
laws, and (3) the discovery of previously unknown hazards that can 
require additional cleanup, increase costs, and delay transfer of the 
property.



For the entire report (prepared testimony), go to
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-547T

--


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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