The Department of Defense continues to reject a federal order detailing how to clean up contamination at Fort Meade despite stern demands from U.S. senators Thursday for a speedy resolution.
“If it was operating in good faith, [the Defense Department] would have signed an agreement years ago,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., during a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Capitol Hill.
Cardin asked several times, at one point shouting, why the Defense Department hasn’t reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over cleaning up toxic chemical and unexploded bombs at the Anne Arundel fort, which was placed on a national cleanup list known as Superfund in 1999.
“Just because there is no remedy in place, doesn’t mean we haven’t looked at it and made sure the public and the environment is protected,” said Wayne Arny, the defense department’s deputy undersecretary for defense installation and environment.
EPA and Maryland Department of the Environment officials said the contamination poses no immediate risk to human health, though several senators were adamant that lives are at stake.
Arny continued the Defense Department’s claim that it has spent millions of dollars to clean up most of the contaminated sites at the Odenton installation.
Cardin and other senators weren’t swayed, saying the EPA, not the Defense Department, has the experience to do environmental work.
“What is happening on the ground does not match the rhetoric heard here today,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the committee’s chairwoman.
The Senate is intervening in a yearlong dispute between the Army and EPA over cleanup methods at the fort and other sites nationwide.
The EPA issued an order in 2007 on cleanup remedies, but the Defense Department said they would cost more and take longer than needed.
MDE Secretary Shari Wilson told the committee that without the order, a timetable doesn’t exist, resulting in “imminent and substantial endangerment in the future.”
“There is significant technical work that has yet to be done,” she said.
The Republican committee members were more sympathetic to the Defense Department.
“The sites are being cleaned up. They don’t need political posturing … [and] squabbling, and they don’t need a bureaucratic red tape agreement,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming.
Only a handful of the committee members were present, and only one — Cardin — was on the dais during last 30 minutes of the hearing.
The Defense Department has about 10 days to answer particular questions about the cleanup sites.
“The real path forward is up to DOD,” Cardin said.
“The department should drop its legal appeals, obey the EPA order and quickly sign the required basewide cleanup plan.”
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