FFERDC RELEASES PRINCIPLES

The Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue Committee (FFERDC) has released its 14-point "Principles for Environmental Cleanup of Federal Facilities." Crafted carefully in a series of meetings this year, the Principles reflect broad agreement among the constituencies that make up this official EPA advisory committee -- Federal agencies, including EPA and the Defense and Energy Departments; representatives of state Attorneys General and environmental regulators; Indian nations; and public representatives from environmental justice groups, other community organizations, and labor unions. Only one of the 50 members of the Committee declined to sign.

The Principles serve three functions:

1. They send a message to Congress and the White House that there is broad agreement that the Federal government has an obligation to clean up after itself. Key players, representing Federal polluters, regulators, and impacted communities are working to improve the cleanup process, to deal with budgetary realities without abandoning the goals written into the nation's environmental laws.

2. The Principles represent a bargain between Federal polluters and the people who oversee their cleanup. Other stakeholders are willing to participate in risk-based priority-setting schemes if the limitations of risk analysis are recognized and other significant factors are considered in determining when and how to carry out cleanup activities.

3. They are building blocks for the Committee's final report. In that report the Committee will address in greater detail mechanisms for priority-setting as well as improvements in stakeholder involvement, with a focus on the role of communities of color and of local government.

The FFERDC's February, 1993 Interim Report has been credited with many improvements in the Federal government's approach to clean up -- such as the formation of Site-Specific/Restoration Advisory Boards. However, the armed services -- as distinguished from the Defense Environmental Security office -- the environmental justice movement, and local government officials were not represented on the panel at that time.

The principles will be supplemented in late October by explanatory text, drafts of which have been discussed by the Committee but which have not yet been finalized.

For a complete copy, contact Sven-Erik Kaiser at U.S. EPA (202/260-5138) or The Keystone Center Science and Public Policy Program (970 or 303/468-5822).

Since we don't have enough room here to print the entire document, we have excerpted some of the most significant or innovative points.

Principles for Environmental Cleanup of Federal Facilities

The Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue Committee (hereafter referred to as the Committee) believes that an overall philosophy of cooperation must permeate the cleanup process given the extraordinary challenge of the problem. In recent years, federal facility environmental cleanup decision making has begun to evolve into a dynamic set of interdependent relationships and partnerships that are premised on trust, as contrasted with past relationships that have largely been adversarial in nature. This is in part the result of opening up the decision-making process to greater and more meaningful stakeholder involvement, as well as improving relationships between regulated and regulatory agencies. However, these relationships are still fairly tenuous and fragile. Any effort to dismantle the programmatic and funding basis that provides the foundation for this cooperative orientation will likely result in setbacks to actually accomplishing the mission of cleaning up environmental contamination at federal facilities. . ..

All Committee members agree that the protection of human health and the environment is of utmost importance. Having agreed to this common goal, the Committee came together to address the reality of national budgetary problems in recognition that cleanup of federal facilities needs to occur over time and requires the setting of priorities. Thus, the goal of the Committee is to develop consensus policy recommendations aimed at improving the process by which federal facility environmental cleanup decisions are made, such that these decisions reflect the priorities and concerns of all stakeholders. The Committee believes that the principles described below will help serve this goal.

These principles are designed to be complementary and not mutually exclusive. They are listed here in an order that the Committee believes strengthens the mutually reinforcing nature of the principles rather than in an order of priority. . ..

8. The Role of Negotiated Cleanup Agreements -- Negotiated cleanup agreements in many instances play a critical role both in setting priorities at a site and providing a means to balance the respective interdependent roles and responsibilities in federal facilities cleanup decision making.

9. Consideration of Human Health Risk and Other Factors in Federal Facility Environmental Cleanup Decision Making -- Human health is an important and well established factor that should continue to be a primary consideration in federal facility cleanup decision making, including setting environmental cleanup priorities and enforceable milestones. However:

a) Risk assessments and other analytical tools used to evaluate risks to human health (including non-cancer as well as cancer health effects) all have scientific limitations and require assumptions in their development. As decision aiding tools, risk assessments should only be used in a manner that recognizes those limitations and assumptions. Moreover, risk assessments ought not be used by any party as a basis for unilaterally setting aside legal requirements that embody public health principles and other important societal values.

b) In addition to human health risk, other factors that warrant consideration include:

• cultural, social, and economic factors, including environmental justice considerations;
• short term and long term ecological effects and environmental impacts in general, including damage to natural resources and lost use;
• making land available for other uses;
• acceptability of the action to regulators, tribes, and public stakeholders;
• statutory requirements and legal agreements;
• life cycle costs;
• pragmatic considerations, such as the ability to execute cleanup projects in a given year, and the feasibility of carrying out the activity in relation to other activities at the facility; and
• overall cost and effectiveness of a proposed activity.

$100 MILLION CLUB

The U.S. military lists 81 distinct facilities with a projected Defense Department cleanup cost, from start to completion, of more than $100 million each. We list them below, in descending order by total estimated cleanup cost.

Containing more than 4,100 individual sites where investigation or cleanup is in progress, these bases represent the bulk of the currently planned cleanup program. Through fiscal year 1994, nearly $4 billion had been spent at these installations, and the Pentagon projects an additional expenditure -- from fiscal 1995 on -- of over $17 billion, for a total exceeding $21 billion. None of these figures include expenditures by other responsible parties, such as Shell Oil at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal or Intel at Moffett Field.

This list covers cleanups funded through the Defense Environmental Restoration Account and the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) accounts, not other programs such as the special appropriations for the remediation of the Hawaiian island of Kaho'olawe. The italic marking for closure or realignment refers specifically to facilities being closed or reduced in size under BRAC legislation. Other closing facilities, such as the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, are not so denoted.

In general, the figures here do not cover the remediation of munitions impact ranges. The military and environmental regulatory agencies have not yet determined the rules for requiring the removal of unexploded bombs and shells. Using currently available technology, the clearing of former and closing ranges for public use would bump a large number of other facilities onto this list.

Finally, we have stayed with the Defense Environmental Restoration Program Annual Report's definitions of the installations. At some locations contiguous facilities are listed separately. For example, the Pearl Harbor complex in Hawaii does not make this list, even though their combined cleanup estimate exceeds $100 million -- and in fact, the Environmental Protection Agency treats them as a single "Superfund" site.

ATLAS AVAILABLE

The Pacific Studies Center and CAREER/PRO have just published the Military Contamination and Cleanup Atlas for the United States -- 1995. Based upon data from the Department of Defense, the 150-page Atlas contains tables and maps summarizing cleanup activity in all 50 states and four territorial areas -- the District of Columbia, Guam, Pacific Islands, and Caribbean Islands. The "$100 Million Club" table (above) is taken from the Atlas. Copies of the Atlas may be ordered for $10.00 plus $3.00 shipping (plus California sales tax if applicable) from CAREER/PRO (425 Market Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105) or PSC.