U.S. Water News Online
WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department is overstating the progress it has made in cleaning up contaminated soil and water and unexploded ammunition at former military sites, congressional auditors said in a report requested by House Democrats.
A Pentagon report on the $200 million-a-year program provided ``a misleading picture'' by claiming that more than half the work had been done when actually only about a third had been completed, the General Accounting Office said.
``As a result, it appears that after 15 years and expenditures of $2.6 billion, over 50 percent of the ... projects have been completed,'' the GAO said in its report, released by Democrats. ``In reality, only about 32 percent of those projects that required actual cleanup actions have been completed, and those are the cheapest and least technologically challenging.''
The program, run by the Army Corps of Engineers, targets sites thought to contain hazardous, toxic, and radioactive wastes in the soil and water or in containers such as underground storage tanks.
Of the more than 9,000 potential cleanup sites across the country as of Oct. 1, 2000, the GAO report found, about one-quarter have cleanup projects. The Corps determined that most did not require or were not eligible for cleanup, according to the GAO.
However, the Corps reported many of those projects as having been completed, even though they were closed merely as the result of administrative action rather than any actual cleanup.
Spokesman Lt. Col. Eugene Pawlik said the Corps probably would soon have more to say on the report. ``We've got to read the report and review the contents,'' he said. ``We know it's a big program, and it seems to get bigger all the time.''
The GAO noted that Pentagon officials provided oral comments agreeing that they need to clarify their method of accounting for the cleanup efforts in future annual reports to Congress.
The Corps estimates the remaining projects will cost more than $13 billion and take at least a half-century more to complete, the GAO said. But those estimates do not account for removing unexploded ordnance -- at an additional cost of $5 billion.
The GAO's yearlong investigation was done at the request of Democratic Reps. John Dingell of Michigan and Tom Sawyer of Ohio, both members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Copies of the report were released by the committee's Democratic staff.
``While the Corps is attempting to use statistics to demonstrate substantial progress, the GAO has found that less than a third of the sites requiring clean-up have been addressed,'' Sawyer said.
``Even more troubling is the front-loading by the Corps of the easy projects, with the schedule for the technically difficult sites stretching out beyond even our children's lifetimes.''
Dingell, the committee's senior Democrat, criticized the Corps for ``tearing down buildings and pulling tanks while many high- and medium-risk properties with toxic groundwater contamination or unexploded ordnance have been left to percolate'' in the soil.
``These seriously contaminated sites must be addressed in a timely manner before this dangerous brew threatens public health and safety,'' he said.
Dingell believes more than $200 million a year should be put into the program but he does not yet have a specific figure to propose, the committee's Democratic counsel, Dick Frandsen, said.
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