The military services' pollution prevention and environmental
conservation accounts are underfunded, officials said. They believe more money
is needed to incorporate environmentally friendly features into the next generation
of weapon systems. They also could use more cleanup dollars to remove obsolete
munitions from unused training ranges.
During a recent environmental symposium in Long Beach, Calif., officials cited
improvements in their anti-pollution programs, but nevertheless expressed caution
about the lack of resources to execute these programs.
"Some very hard choices need to be made in the budget world," said
Navy Rear Adm. Larry C. Baucom, director of the Navy's Environmental Protection,
Safety and Occupational Health Division. "It is very tempting to start
writing checks."
Baucom, who recently replaced retired Rear Adm. Andrew A. Granuzzo, told the
NDIA 26th Environmental Symposium and Exhibition that the Navy's emphasis is
shifting as it completes current projects. Along the lines of funding, "It's
going in the direction that we probably don't want it to go," he said.
The Navy had an environmental budget of around $908 million in fiscal year
1998, and it is looking at approximately $663 million in fiscal 2001. However,
"the reality is ... that we are making some progress," said Baucom.
Overall, the Navy is undergoing a "cultural change," he said. This
means the Navy is becoming more concerned about risk management and protecting
the environment, he explained. The Navy now is committed to protecting marine
life, ensuring that waste does not end up in the oceans. "[Sailors] are
darn proud that they don't put anything in the water today," said Baucom,
who recalled that during one of his first assignments on an aircraft carrier
in the Atlantic, his crew left "miles of trash-bags in its wake. Now, our
motto in the Navy is, 'we're going to leave a clean wake.'"
The Navy has installed garbage recycling equipment onboard many of its ships.
"Hopefully, by 2010, we'll have a pretty good handle on our [cleanup],
and that [compliance] funding will slip off dramatically," said Baucom.
Compliance, which traditionally consumes the largest chunk of environmental
dollars, most likely will level off as new technologies come into play, he said.
"And as we work with new technologies to help us do our compliance issues
cheaper and with better business practices, we could see further reduction,"
said Baucom.
One of the reasons compliance funding will drop is because the services are
bringing pollution prevention into the decision-making process. When the Defense
Department acquires weapon systems, it must consider its operational objectives.
But these systems also are required to cause as little pollution as possible,
said Baucom. Preventing pollution from the beginning of a system's life-cycle
will ultimately lead to the military services meeting their compliance demands,
officials said.
Pollution Prevention
The Navy has turned its emphasis to technology, pollution prevention and conservation,
said Baucom. "[We need] to at least maintain those budgets, if not expand
them, because that's where we need to go," he said. "We need to take
leap-ahead technologies, experiment with them and look forward to the future
... Research and development is key. If we are going to live in harmony with
nature, and if we are going to operate these new weapon systems, we're going
to need to put money in research and development to find out what we possibly
can do [to curb] noise and air pollution."
The Army also is working to incorporate pollution prevention into its weapons
procurement agenda. "We need to focus on pollution prevention," said
Maj. Gen. Robert L. VanAntwerp, Army assistant chief of staff for installation
management. "At some point, we have to get beyond the compliance, or we'll
always be doing the compliance. And so we're really struggling with where to
put our dollars and make them go the farthest."
A major challenge that the Army faces, said VanAntwerp, is maintaining training
facilities. "Training is our bread and butter ... There are not a lot of
training areas any more that are capable of handling the type of warfare training
we need for the future."
The Army environmental budget in fiscal 2001 is about $1.2 billion, said VanAntwerp.
"It's not enough," he said. " ... I don't think in the Army that
we are going to increase our top financial line in this area."
VanAntwerp does not expect environmental funding to increase, because the Army
needs to devote more money to support Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's vision
of a faster, lighter force.
Army Transformation
"The Army is undergoing a transformation. And it's incredibly exciting,
but it's expensive," said VanAntwerp. "So we're all being told 'let's
hold the lines for the other programs.'"
In supporting the Army's mission, VanAntwerp posed the question of how many
uniformed service people are needed at the installation level, and how much
commercial activity and training can be afforded in order to "fully man
the force?"
VanAntwerp came to the conference looking for answers. He came
looking for answers regarding unexploded ordnance (UXO)-an issue
that affects all the services because of new regulations concerning
UXO removal at military sites. The Army is looking for a technology
that can detect UXO at any depth, under any soil conditions. The
impending Range Rule, a proposed regulation that offers guidelines
on how to handle UXO at closed ranges, may put financial constraints
on the Army, said VanAntwerp. "My gut feeling is that we're
talking billions of dollars to do what we need to do so that we
can turn back the land to the authorities," he said. The Range
Rule is expected to be finalized this August, according to Sherri
W. Goodman, deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security.
The Army also lacks the funds for specific cleanup projects, said VanAntwerp.
At the West Point Military Academy, the Army used to fire munitions into an
area called The Crow's Nest, he said. "In those days we were pretty errant
in our firing, and a lot of those went over into the park service area."
Last year, a fire started on the West Point range and spread into the park area,
"and now we have our hands full [with cleanup]." West Point does not
have the funds to do the cleanup work, he added. The Army plans to assess the
damages and take further action.
A setback that has affected all of the services is an overabundance of notices
of violations (NOV). The service panel at the conference agreed these NOVs have
to go down. "If you show a negative trend ... [you have to] make sure it's
going in the right direction," said Baucom.
Curbing Violations
"It seems like in the last three or four years, we've had a ton of new
regulations. Maybe we are getting tougher enforcement ... It seems like we are
having more violations, " said VanAntwerp. In some cases, he added, the
Army has had to report itself. "A lot of our violations are self-referrals."
The Air Force has had problems of its own in this area.
"The Air Force has spent a lot of energy working on notices of violation,"
said Gary M. Erickson, director of the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence,
at Brooks Air Force Base, in San Antonio. Several years ago, the Air Force had
126 open NOVs, said Erickson. The service developed teams to correct the problems.
"Now, we're approaching zero [NOVs]," said Erickson. "I don't
think we'll ever [exactly hit] zero. Right now we seem to be opening and closing
the same number of NOVs each month, but it takes a real time, on-the-ball effort
to get these down ... You have to stay in front of the regulators."
The Air Force has 87 major installations and has been successful in many of
its cleanup programs, said Erickson. The Air Force had planned to reduce its
high risk site inventory by 50 percent by fiscal 2002, and it achieved this
by fiscal 1999, said Erickson. The last of these sites is on schedule to be
cleaned up by 2014, he added.
The Air Force is seeking stable funding, said Erickson. "The Defense Department
and Congress have been very supportive of that ... The money is perhaps modest
for what we have to do. So every dollar that we spend has to be spent right."
Erickson echoed the sentiments of the other services regarding pollution prevention.
"We do need to do a better job with compliance," he said. "We
need to move from compliance to pollution prevention. We need to take care of
our legal obligations and stretch that money."
The Air Force allocates $400 million for compliance and about $10-$12 million
for pollution prevention, which according to Erickson, is about a third of what
the service should be spending on pollution prevention. "We've got a long
way to go to make pollution prevention a real business-like force ... We need
to figure out a way to develop real property investments, so that we can buy
ourselves out of the compliance business."