Thursday, May 9, 2024
Defense Environment Alert -- In a report that reiterates the encroachment impacts the military faces at its training ranges, the Defense Department says it is taking actions to curb training constraints, but warns problems will worsen unless proper management and broad cooperation occurs.
Defense Environment Alert -- EPA is pressing the Defense Department to strengthen the agency's ability to require emergency cleanups at operational testing and training ranges in an effort to gain EPA's support for broader legislation exempting the ranges from hazardous waste law requirements, government and congressional sources say.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department's environmental liabilities increased by $2.1 billion from fiscal year 2002 to FY-03, primarily due to the Army's continuing efforts to improve its estimates for cleaning up closed military ranges, according to a recently released DOD report on the department's financial statements.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Office of the Secretary of Defense appears to be putting the brakes on existing plans to accelerate the destruction of chemical weapons at its Pueblo, CO, and Blue Grass, KY, sites, where DOD has chosen non-incineration methods to destroy the weapons.
Defense Environment Alert -- A coalition of environmental groups is in the early stages of preparing its response to an expected Defense Department effort to renew a push for environmental exemptions in the fiscal year 2005 defense authorization bill.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department has selected Alex Albert Beehler, a key environment official with petrochemical giant Koch Industries, to head its environment office.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department is emphasizing the development and implementation of military-written natural resources management plans, which under newly enacted legislation can be used as substitutes for critical habitat designations if they meet Interior Department criteria.
Defense Environment Alert -- After repeated requests from lawmakers, the Defense Department earlier this month provided members of Congress with further information on perchlorate use and sampling for the contaminant at its installations.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department last week signed off on a revised perchlorate sampling policy, giving the military services specific criteria to determine whether to sample for DOD-generated perchlorate contamination, while continuing to remain silent on whether to initiate cleanup in response to contamination.
Defense Environment Alert -- Defense Department officials are making changes to the way DOD addresses potential perchlorate contamination, agreeing last week to cooperate with California standards once they become final.
The Navy's top commander in the Pacific Fleet will temporarily review all requests to conduct training with active sonar in Puget Sound, acting Navy Secretary Hansford Johnson recently told Washington Gov. Gary Locke (D).
Defense Environment Alert -- Despite a recent restructuring, Defense Department officials say they will maintain their staff of 22 career employees in DOD's environment office, and they believe the office is sufficiently staffed to provide proper oversight.
Defense Environment Alert -- Defense Department officials are restructuring the installations and environment office in anticipation of a growing presence in overseeing the 2005 base realignment and closure process and to reform business practices throughout the I&E office.
Defense Environment Alert -- The military services have raised issues with a draft policy on perchlorate the Office of the Secretary of Defense has been considering that would lift restrictions on sampling for the chemical and establish 1 part per billion (ppb) as a trigger level to consider action.
House and Senate authorization committees have backed changes to natural resource laws that would ease environmental requirements for the military, but rejected the Pentagon's controversial plea to relax requirements under pollution control laws.
The Navy and the Interior Department on April 30 signed a memorandum of agreement establishing the terms of transferring the eastern end of Vieques, Puerto Rico, from the Navy to DOI for designation as a wildlife refuge, ending the Navy's controversial training activities there.
Pentagon watchers predict Raymond DuBois' expected departure as the Defense Department's top environment official will not alter the Pentagon's push for legislation to relax environmental requirements for the military.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department is undertaking a "major effort" to catalog exactly where environmental laws and other types of encroachment are limiting training plans, following heavy criticism over the lack of hard data showing military readiness impacts from encroachment factors, such as environmental requirements.
A Defense Department task force has recommended the military for the first time apply energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) to mobile weapon systems rather than just fixed facilities.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is pushing the military services to consider invoking national security exemptions under various environmental laws if environmental requirements are disrupting military training plans.