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Policy

Defense Chided On Superfund Cleanups

by David J. Hanson
August 23, 2010 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 88, Issue 34

The Department of Defense has 141 installations on the EPA national priorities list of 1,620 contaminated sites for cleanup under the Superfund law, but the two federal agencies are having trouble agreeing on how and when the cleanup work should be done. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO-10-348) notes that several DOD installations have refused to sign the required interagency agreements that formally guide federal cleanups, and consequently EPA does not recognize any of the cleanup work done at those sites. Also, GAO says DOD has not reported all of the contamination at some sites, further delaying cleanups and increasing the risk of health and environmental problems. GAO suggests that EPA and DOD need to develop uniform methods for reporting cleanup progress at defense installations and that EPA be given more power by Congress to enforce cleanups at federal Superfund sites without the mandatory interagency agreements in order to ensure timely cleanups.

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