| Citizens' Report on the | July, 1995 |
| Published by the Pacific Studies Center and SFSU CAREER/PRO | Volume II, Number 4 |
| BRAC COMMISSION RECOMMENDS NEW CLOSURE LIST: The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission has just submitted to the President a list of domestic military bases recommended for closure and realignment. The Commission made numerous changes in the original list submitted by the Defense Department (see Military and the Environment, March, 1995), and the White House has hinted that it may ask the Commission to make further revisions. At least 36 of the bases on the Commission's list, including nine on the "Superfund" National Priorities List of the nation's most dangerous properties, contain serious hazardous waste contamination. In its latest cleanup report, the Defense Department counted more than 900 separate "sites in progress" on those 36 bases. (See attached list and map.) Nearly a half billion dollars has been spent on investigation and cleanup, and before the closure recommendations the Pentagon projected an additional $2.3 billion in cleanup costs to complete restoration. Experience with previous closures suggests that more sites will be uncovered and additional costs will be incurred as property is prepared for transfer and reuse.  (click here to pop up a larger map in a new browser window) MAJOR BASE CLOSURES
One base, McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, California, dwarfs the others in its cleanup requirements, at about one third of the total for the new closure list. The Defense Environmental Security office reports that the Air Force expects to spend over $700 million more on McClellan's 234 distinct sites, on top of $150 million already spent through fiscal year 1994. As part of their efforts to keep the base operating, environmental officials at McClellan have released projections showing that a fast-track cleanup program -- Pentagon policy on closing bases slated for transfer -- would cost nearly twice as much as a slower, more deliberate effort. Air Force officials at McClellan say that the current approach, which targets completion for the year 2034, would cost $709 to $925 million. Accelerating cleanup, to implement systems by 2008 and finish the job by 2018, would cost $1.2 to $1.8 billion. McClellan is also the closure that President Clinton is most likely to ask the BRAC Commission to reconsider. (By the time this newsletter is distributed, Clinton will have made his decision.) The closure of McClellan would have the greatest impact on politically sensitive California, and the base was not on the list that the Secretary of Defense submitted to the Commission earlier this year. If McClellan is kept open, two northern California Air National Guard units may be added back to the closure list. The Defense Department had proposed the transfer of units based at Moffett Field and North Highlands Air Guard Station to McClellan, but the Commission dropped those changes when it targeted McClellan. Other changes in the list are possible, but as we go to press they appear improbable. For nearly all the bases on the new list, cleanup funding through fiscal year 1996 will come from the Defense Environmental Restoration Account (DERA). In fiscal year 1995, Congress cut and rescinded $700 million from the President's $2.2 billion request for DERA. This year, the House trimmed $200 million from the President's $1.6 billion request, and it has proposed that additional DERA funds be available to fund military contingencies. If past practice is followed, in fiscal year 1997 Congress will fund BRAC cleanup from a separate account. The House of Representatives, however, believes that too much money is being spent on BRAC cleanup, and it has proposed converting this year's proposed $457 million floor for BRAC cleanup -- covering previous closures -- into a ceiling. Even before the House passed the Military Construction bill containing that change, the Pentagon's blue-ribbon advisory group, the Defense Science Board, found that money in the BRAC cleanup pipeline is insufficient:
The Senate has not yet weighed in on the issue, but preliminary reports from the Senate Armed Services Committee suggest that it will recommend sustaining cleanup at levels proposed by the President. However, once funds are authorized Congress must still appropriate the funds. Leaders of the Appropriations Committees in both houses have indicated that once again they will cut Defense environmental programs substantially to make money available for weapons modernization and force readiness. CAP ON "STUDIES" Section 326 of the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996, as passed by the House of Representatives, says:
The Defense Department has made progress in advancing "real cleanup." After years of identifying and characterizing contamination, the Defense Department is spending more DERA money on cleanup than on studies. But the arbitrary cap is based upon frustration with the slowness of the cleanup process, not upon sound science. Defense Department testimony before Congress has stressed that just as battlefield commanders must conduct reconnaissance before going into battle, so must the forces that attack hazardous waste contamination. There is too much paperwork in the cleanup process, but the physical size of studies on a bookshelf should not be confused with the need to look before we leap. Limiting studies, administration, and support to one fifth of the cleanup budget could work against efforts to target dollars at high-risk and other high-priority sites. It could force the armed services to perform cleanup on less risky or low priority sites instead of completing studies on complex, hazardous sites. You can't very well sink an extraction well, or even determine if that's the proper remedy, unless you've characterized the plume. AMMO DEMILITARIZATION A great deal of attention has been paid to the demilitarization of weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear weapons, ICBMs, chemical weapons -- that are covered by treaties, but the destruction -- or merely the continued storage -- of unusable conventional munitions could also pose a significant environmental risk. Recent data compiled by the Army Materiel Command suggests that the U.S. is preparing to dispose of vast quantities of such weapons. Presumably, other major powers -- and many minor ones as well -- also have surplus and obsolete weapons requiring disposal. The Army continues to oppose outside regulation of weapons demil -- until the munitions are certified for disposal at a treatment or disposal site. But it recognizes that both open burning/open detonation and incineration are environmentally unsound. It is developing processes for the recycling and reuse of weapons components, as well as treatment technologies that include supercritical water oxidation and plasma arc furnaces. Below are official projections for the quantities of ammunition entering the official ammunition demilitarization account each year. Please note, however, that by April 15, 1995 the FY 1995 total had reached 126,000 tons, more than the amount projected for the entire year ending June 30. Munitions Entering Demil Account
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
