Monday, February 2, 2004
Monday, February 2, 2004
Army
lax on site cleanup
'99 orders targeting Utah,
other states weren't carried out
Copyright 2004 Deseret Morning News
By Lee Davidson
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — A group camping in 1986 on Utah's Hurricane Mesa, unaware
it was once an impact area for Army mortars and grenades, found something
that looked a lot like an old artillery shell.
Deseret Morning News graphic |
The Army, tired of such horror
stories of discovering unexploded or forgotten ordnance nationwide, in 1999
issued directives designed to force current and former ranges to better track
their cleanup efforts, better record ordnance use, improve security, reduce
environmental damage and improve sustainability of ranges.
But inspectors now say those directives
were never implemented, according to documents obtained by the Deseret Morning
News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Worse, investigators said even
if they had been implemented, they were seriously flawed by not requiring
reviews needed to ensure Army and National Guard ranges were truly complying
and meeting goals.
Utah is home to such ranges as
the Army's Rhode Island-size Dugway Proving Ground. The Pentagon has also
said that unexploded ordnance could be at other former defense sites in Utah,
including Salt Lake City International Airport, the Hurricane Mesa and Fort
Douglas.
The Army Audit Agency, which found
the new problems, called for the Army to quickly implement the long-ignored
directives now. Army headquarters has concurred with that, according to the
documents obtained.
"The Army didn't have an effective
Range Sustainment Program because it didn't promptly implement (the Department
of Defense's) directives for environmental and explosives safety management,"
the Army Audit Agency concluded in a report dated Sept. 9, 2003. Why?
"Although DOD issued its directives
in 1999, the Army didn't instruct its commands and installations to implement
the directives," the report said.
Inspectors say the directives
were lost in the shuffle of reorganization at the U.S. Army Installations
Management Agency, which occurred about the same time.
Implementation instructions and
rules did finally come in 2003 — but inspectors found the Army "delayed funding
for implementation until fiscal year 2005." (Inspectors note Army installations
supposedly had been ordered to complete management plans originally by Dec.
31, 2001.)
"Unless the Army accelerates implementation
of the DOD directives by emphasizing the need for immediate actions and interim
fund allocations, Army ranges are at risk for adverse environmental impacts,"
the Army Audit Agency warned.
Army headquarters in October issued
a memo saying it concurred with a recommendation to implement, finally, the
new rules with interim funding if necessary.
Inspectors also complained that
early draft regulations "didn't include the key management controls needed
to provide reasonable assurance that the Army was meeting the requirements
stipulated in the DOD directives."
Inspectors say that at a minimum a checklist should be created for installations to follow to evaluate how well they do such things as:
• Prevent unauthorized access to DOD ranges, especially impact areas and other areas suspected of containing unexploded ordnance.
• Provide adequate training in explosives safety to individuals authorized access to DOD ranges before they are allowed access to them.
• Maintain permanent records of all military munitions expended, all unexploded ordnance clearance operations, and the coordinates of all areas known or suspected of containing unexploded ordnance.
Army headquarters also concurred
with that recommendation, according to an Oct. 21 memo.
Of note, a recent Department of
Defense inventory has identified 2,307 sites nationally that could contain
unexploded ordnance. As of September 2002, it had cleaned up only 1 percent
of them. The U.S. General Accounting Office has estimated it could take up
to 300 years to clean all areas based on current funding levels.
In September 2001, the Environmental
Protection Agency used military data to tally 126 incidents of civilians exposed
to unexploded ordnance over the 83 previous years — producing at least 65
fatalities and 131 injuries.
In early days, the military did
not always record exact impact areas — or even where it buried discarded
stockpiles. Resulting problems range from contractors at Dugway once accidentally
digging up old materials contaminated with mustard gas, to a housing development
in Washington, D.C., finding old chemical arms buried there.
New directives are designed not only to prevent such problems in the future but to help ensure ranges can be sustained environmentally over the long term.
E-mail: lee@desnews.com