DoD and Base Contamination Cleanups

Pentagon slow to clean up bases, report says

16 August 2010 - After more than 20 years of disagreements the Defense Department is still resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases.

Pollution cleanup at Fort Meade in Maryland, New Jersey's McGuire Air Force Base and Tyndall Air Force base in Florida remain in the early stages with little long term progress, according to a Government Accountability Office report set for release this week. (See the full report below.)

The Pentagon is the nation's biggest polluter, owning 141 of the 1,620 Superfund sites on the EPA's list. The Defense Department spent about $29.8 billion on environmental cleanup at military installations from 1986 to 2008, GAO said. By law EPA is supposed to sign interagency agreements with federal agencies that own Superfund sites, but as of June the Defense Department hadn't signed agreements for four of its sites, GAO said.

The Post reported more than two years ago that the Pentagon didn't want to sign such agreements with EPA, since it would put the environmental agency in charge of cleanup at the sites and allow it to assess penalties. {read more}

GAO report on Pentagon cleanup of military bases