Services Promote Pollution-Prevention Efforts.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.
• Position: Clean-up of contaminated military bases

Defense environmental programs take advantage of information technology

There are almost 12,000 contaminated sites at more than 700 active and recently-closed military bases. The Pentagon is by far the single biggest polluter in the United States. It will cost an estimated $30 billion to meet the Defense Department's cleanup requirements on the books today.

Environmental experts and managers from the military services converged at San Antonio, Texas, in late August--all seeking answers to the question: Can the services do more to prevent pollution and to manage hazardous waste?

At the 6th annual Joint Services Pollution Prevention and Hazardous Waste Management conference and exhibition, representatives from the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine Corps shared their success stories. The event was co-hosted by the U.S. Army Environmental Center and the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence.

An executive order issued by President Clinton in April 2000 required that an environmental-management system must be in place at all federal government facilities by 2005. Executive Order 13148 sent all the military services scrambling to put together comprehensive environmental plans.

"The business we're in generates a great deal of hazardous waste," said Frank Lotts, deputy director of logistics operations at the Defense Logistics Agency.

"The Navy is dedicated to the stewardship of our environment," said Capt. Michael Jaggard, acting executive director for acquisition and business management for the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition.

"The Navy's environmental logistics challenge is to support readiness, ensure compliance, increase flexibility and reduce life cycle costs," said David Price, chief of shore and environmental quality for the Navy. The service is seeking a balance between environmental protection and readiness, he said.

The Navy was asked to comply with an executive order much earlier than the rest of the services, and are thereby thought by many to be "ahead of the curve." Executive Order 12856, the "Federal Compliance with Right-to-Know Laws and Pollution Prevention Guidance," required shore facilities to reduce toxic releases by 50 percent, and was slated to be accomplished by 1999.

The Navy has a P2 (pollution prevention) Afloat program, whose objective is to "develop techniques, methods and better management practices for use by the fleet to facilitate pollution prevention practices in...