The EPA notes significant pollution problems at some 100 military
bases, and 34 already-shuttered bases are among the most toxic "Superfund"
sites, according to an Associated Press survey. Problems persist with such
hard-to-remove contaminants as cleaning solvents, asbestos, radioactive materials,
unexploded ordnance, and lead paint. The Pentagon already has spent $8.3
billion cleaning up recently closed military sites, and the total bill could
top $12 billion.
All of this makes it difficult for the Pentagon to convert
such facilities to state or privately owned properties, the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) reported recently. In most cases, it takes years, if not decades,
to finish the cleanup. In some places, for example, poisonous chemicals have
seeped into groundwater flowing off-base.
According to the GAO, which looked at the previous four rounds
of base closures going back to 1988, 28 percent of the total acreage has
yet to be transferred "due primarily to the need for environmental cleanup."
While new base closures announced last week will add to that
problem, total amounts of toxic pollution in the US environment have edged
down.
In its latest annual Toxics Release Inventory, which covers
more than 23,000 facilities and about 650 chemicals, the EPA reports that
4.4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released in 2003 (the latest available
figures), about 6 percent less than the previous year. Most of the decrease
was in metal mining and chemical manufacturing. Since 1998, before which
fewer chemicals and fewer facilities were reported, toxic releases have gone
down 42 percent.
At the same time, EPA officials and environmentalists note
the worrisome release of persistent bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals (PBTs),
which increased by 50 million pounds or 11 percent in the latest reporting
year. These include dioxins, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
"PBT chemicals are of particular concern," reports the EPA,
"not only because they are toxic, but also because they remain in the environment
for long periods of time and are not readily destroyed (they persist) and
build up or accumulate in body tissues (they bioaccumulate)."
In 2003, for example, mercury and mercury-compound releases
jumped 41 percent. Mercury is a highly toxic substance that can poison wildlife
and cause brain and nervous-system damage in children and fetuses. Unlike
most other pollutants, mercury tends to concentrate in dangerous "hot spots."
"Although it is good news that overall releases are back on
track, it is a major concern that some of the most hazardous chemicals have
increased so dramatically," says Meghan Purvis, an environmental health specialist
with US Public Interest Research Group in Washington.
Meanwhile, according to the watchdog group Environmental Integrity
Project, the 50 dirtiest among the nation's 359 largest power plants generate
as little as 14 percent of the electric power but account for a disproportionately
large share of pollution emissions: up to 50 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions,
42 percent of mercury, 40 percent of nitrogen oxides, and 35 percent of carbon
dioxide.
"A huge share of these emissions comes from a handful of unnecessarily
dirty power plants that have not yet installed modern pollution controls,
or which operate inefficiently," says Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental
Integrity Project and the EPA's former chief of regulatory enforcement.
Others take a longer view of pollution in the United States.
"In reality, the data is very clear," says Scott Segal, director
of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council in Washington, which lobbies
on behalf of power plants and utilities around the country. "Power-plant
emissions, along with other indicators of air quality in the United States,
continue to improve as part of a trend dating back several decades."
"With a decade of compiled research ... we've found that it
is nearly impossible to paint a grim, doom-and-gloom picture anymore," says
Steven Hayward of the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank
in San Francisco that copublishes the "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators"
with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "The facts speak for
themselves, and the facts are hugely encouraging."
Other more recent facts may be less encouraging, however.
For example, the Sierra Club reported last month that leaky underground storage
tanks "are a growing threat to public health."
In all, there are some 130,000 leaking tanks around the country,
including 17,544 needing cleanup in Florida, 15,049 in California, 9,039
in Michigan, and 1,221 in Tennessee.
"More than 100 million people drink groundwater in states
where thousands of underground storage tanks are leaking and need cleanups,"
says Grant Cope, a toxics specialist with the Sierra Club. "These sites include
toxics like benzene, toluene, and heavy metals that can quickly pollute groundwater,
threaten public health, burden taxpayers with cleanup costs, and hurt real
estate values.... A pin-prick sized hole in one fuel tank can leak 400 gallons
of contamination a day, and one gallon of gasoline can pollute one million
gallons of groundwater."
