Environmental Cleanup

Too Many High Priority Sites Impede DOD's Program Gao ID: NSIAD-94-133 April 21, 1994

Despite spending a reported $3.76 billion through September 1993 for its program to clean up hazardous waste at high priority installations, the Defense Department (DOD) has proceeded slowly during the past decade. Most of the time and money has been spent on studying the problem, and few hazardous waste sites have actually been cleaned up. This report reviews DOD's (1) progress in its cleanup efforts and estimated costs, (2) plans for completing the cleanup at high priority installations, and (3) factors that have affected progress in cleaning up high priority sites.

GAO found that: (1) as of September 1993, DOD has spent $3.76 billion on cleanups at its high priority sites, but its progress has been slow and relatively few sites have been cleaned up; (2) most DOD cleanup expenditures have been for environmental studies; (3) DOD estimates that it will cost $18.2 billion to clean up its 254 high priority installations, but actual costs will probably increase; (4) DOD has proposed revising its cleanup process to develop cooperative relationships with regulatory agencies, set up priorities based on risk, accelerate cleanups, increase management attention, and improve the environmental funding process; (5) the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) system for identifying DOD high priority sites for cleanup has led to a large number of installations being listed while some more contaminated unlisted sites pose a greater risk; (6) DOD must apply the entire cleanup process to all contaminated sites even if the contamination is minor; (7) for DOD to use its limited cleanup resources efficiently, DOD and EPA must evaluate the large number of DOD installations on the National Priorities List (NPL) and determine which are truly high priority; and (8) factors affecting DOD cleanup of high priority sites include the complex and time-consuming cleanup process, prolonged environmental studies, disagreements with regulatory agencies on the extent of cleanups, cleanup issues that do not pertain to government installations, and scarce resources.

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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