THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 30, 1994 TAG: 9409300490
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
The military could run into difficulty in closing bases because a poor job was done keeping track of radioactive waste, Sen. John Glenn said Thursday.
Surplus federal property cannot be transferred into private hands until environmental problems are cleaned up. But the Defense Department does not know how much or what kind of radiation is contaminating American bases, according to a General Accounting Office report.
``This problem is difficult enough for existing, active military bases,'' said Glenn, D-Ohio, who released the report. ``It comprises an even more intractable problem when bases are closed and disposal of base property is being negotiated.
``How can we carry out disposal procedures and recoup money for the U.S. Treasury if we can't define what contamination there is, how much it will cost for cleanup and when it will be completed?'' Glenn said.
The GAO examined the Defense Department's inventory of 420 low-level radioactive sites on military land, but found some sites double-counted, others omitted and others skipped entirely.
The Pentagon's database showed where low-level radiation was believed to be but did not identify the kind of contamination or show the quantity.
``It makes it awful hard to control and clean up a dangerous material if you don't even know what that material is,'' Glenn said.
``DOD does not have enough information in regards to its radioactive sites,'' he said.
Spokeswoman Beverly Baker said the Pentagon was taking a close look at Glenn's questions. ``However, there is no question that the Department of Defense has imposed every safeguard possible and every safeguard required by law to control and secure its radiative material and to protect public health and safety,'' she said.
Glenn has been looking for details on military base radiation since 1986, when some personnel at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio opened an unmarked barrel and inadvertently released a puff of radioactive powder.
The Air Force didn't know there was Americium-241 waste in that barrel, which had been illegally dumped there, but the accident investigation disclosed that records on the Air Force's own nuclear materials were in a shambles, and the materials themselves poorly labeled and stored under lax security.
KEYWORDS: HAZARDOUS WASTE POLLUTION by CNB