NEWS RELEASE
Committee on Energy and Commerce Democrats
Congressman John D. Dingell, Ranking Member

DOD FAILING TO CLEAN UP CONTAMINATION
FROM UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE AND
MILITARY MUNITIONS

Representatives John D. Dingell, Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and Hilda L. Solis, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, today released a General Accounting Office (GAO) report that found the Department of Defense (DOD) has made limited progress in its program to identify, assess, and clean up sites that may be contaminated with military munitions such as perchlorate and TNT. The GAO further concluded that DOD does not yet have a "complete and viable plan" for cleaning up at least 15 million acres of land known to be or suspected of being contaminated with military munitions. This figure does not include military munition contamination on thousands of operational ranges or other closed ranges on active installations because, as the report notes, the Army had only surveyed and identified closed ranges on 14 percent of its active installations.

The DOD estimates that identifying, assessing, and cleaning up contamination from military munitions at such sites will cost from $8 billion to $35 billion. According to the GAO, at an annual funding level of approximately $106 million (the average amount budgeted or spent annually from fiscal year 2002 to fiscal year 2004), cleanup at the remaining munitions sites in DOD's current inventory could conservatively take from 75 to 330 years to complete. More specifically, the GAO found that the Air Force has not budgeted any funds to assess and cleanup munitions sites, nor does it plan to do so through fiscal year 2004.

"DOD is failing miserably to meet the challenge of cleaning up its legacy of contamination from military munitions and unexploded ordinance containing perchlorate, TNT, RDX, and other hazardous materials that are threatening the health and environment of our communities," Dingell said. "These munitions also pose a very direct public safety problem, with 65 fatalities and 131 injuries in 126 incidents identified by GAO involving civilians who were exposed to unexploded ordnance."

"I am disappointed that United States Department of Defense doesn't even know the extent of the pollution that they have caused and won't know the extent of their mess until 2012. It is almost as if they don't care and what is even more troubling is they do not even have a plan for cleaning up the known areas. This is important since these sites are not just in remote areas, but many affect communities that are densely populated," said Representative Hilda L. Solis (CA-32), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials.

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