Environmental Contamination: DOD Has Taken Steps to Improve Cleanup Coordination at Former Defense Sites but Clearer Guidance Is Needed to Ensure Consistency

摘要

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) is in charge of addressing cleanup at the more than 9,000 U.S. properties that were formerly owned or controlled by the Department of Defense (DOD) and have been identified as potentially eligible for environmental cleanup. The Corps has determined that more than 4,000 of these properties have no hazards that require further Corps study or cleanup action. However, in recent years, hazards have surfaced at some of these properties, leading state and federal regulators to question whether the Corps has properly assessed and cleaned up these properties. In this context, Congress asked us to (1) analyze federal coordination requirements that apply to the cleanup of these properties, (2) assess recent DOD and Corps efforts to improve coordination, and (3) identify any issues regulators may have about coordination with the Corps. The GAO recommends that the DOD and the Corps (1) develop clear and specific coordination guidance that should explicitly include, among other things, preliminary assessment of eligibility and ordnance and explosive waste; (2) assess recent efforts to improve coordination at the national as well as district level and promote wider distribution of best practices; and (3) work with EPA to clarify their respective roles in the cleanup of former defense sites that are not on the list of the nations worst hazardous sites.