Environmental Cleanup

Better Communication Needed for Dealing with Formerly Used Defense Sites in Guam Gao ID: GAO-02-423 April 11, 2002

Chemical testing kits from World War II containing diluted mustard gas and other chemicals have been discovered on Guam. The Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for identifying and cleaning up contaminated military sites throughout the United States and its territories. In the mid-1990s, DOD scaled back its identification efforts nationally and focused its attention on Guam. It now relies on referrals from the Guam Environmental Protection Agency and on incidental discovery during construction and other operational activities. Stakeholders had three concerns about the Army Corps of Engineers' efforts to identify and address contamination on former defense sites. First, they were uncertain about the Corps' process for adding potentially contaminated locations to its Guam inventory. Second, some locations containing debris, such as metal and tires, were excluded even though the waste was caused by DOD and could place a financial burden on the owner to remove it. Third, stakeholders were concerned about the slow pace of funding for the program. Between fiscal years 1984 and 2000, only four percent of the total expected cost of cleaning up these locations had been funded in Guam, compared with 16 percent nationwide.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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