US Congressman Pushes for Scrutiny in Vieques Firing Range Clean-up

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) is pushing the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, to scrutinize the conduct of EPA and the Navy in cleaning up the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, which for years was used as a naval firing range. Crowley's intervention follows the announcement last year that federal agencies and local authorities will develop an enforceable agreement on how to proceed in the controversial clean-up.

"I am calling on the Government Accountability Office to assess whether the plans for cleaning up Vieques are optimal and whether the U.S. Navy and its contractors are using the latest and most effective technology to complete this task," Crowley says in a Jan. 25 letter addressed to GAO Comptroller General David Walker.

The Navy, EPA, the Department of Interior and the Puerto Rico government agreed in September to work on a proposed federal facilities agreement (FFA), which will delineate responsibilities and goals for all signatory parties under an enforceable accord. "Although the proposed agreement should provide much-needed guidance and facilitate cooperation among the agencies, the troubling environmental, ecological and health situation in Vieques cannot depend solely on the expectations of future governmental understandings," Crowley says in the letter.

Crowley says GAO should follow up on an earlier report, prepared in March 2007 at the request of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), that described the progress of the Vieques cleanup.

The letter contains a list of questions that GAO should put to both the Navy and EPA. Among the questions for EPA are "is the EPA funded sufficiently by the Navy to undertake its outreach and oversight roles at Vieques?", and "has the EPA afforded appropriate consideration to sampling and/or remediation of impacted marine environments?"

The Navy should be asked, among other questions, whether its remediation effort is "consistent with other Superfund clean-ups that the Navy, or the U.S. armed forces, are undertaking or have undertaken?" He also poses the question:"is the Navy sufficiently monitoring the air, soil and water with regards to the detonation-in-place UXO disposal?"

Crowley's office could not be reached for comment on questions related to his inquiry.

Vieques is so far the only military site to be added by the Bush administration to Superfund's National Priorities List (NPL) of the country's most polluted sites requiring cleanup. It was added at the insistence of then-Gov. Sila Calderón, exercising her right under Superfund law to request the addition of a single facility to the list.

Source: Defense Environment Alert via InsideEPA.com