EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American military creating an environmental disaster in Afghan countryside (Part 1 of 3)
KabulPress

America plans to withdraw its troops but leave behind a toxic mess

Kabul Press, April 25, 2010

The American military presence in Afghanistan consists of fleets of aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles, weapons, equipment, troops and facilities. Since 2001, they have generated millions of kilograms of hazardous, toxic and radioactive wastes. The Kabul Press asks the simple question:

"What have the Americans done with all that waste?"

The answer is chilling in that virtually all of it appears to have been buried, burned or secretly disposed of into the air, soil, groundwater and surface waters of Afghanistan. While the Americans may begin to withdraw next year, the toxic chemicals they leave behind will continue to pollute for centuries. Any abandoned radioactive waste may stain the Afghan countryside for thousands of years. Afghanistan has been described in the past as the graveyard of foreign armies. Today, Afghanistan has a different title:

"Afghanistan is the toxic dumping ground for foreign armies."

The (U.S.) Air Force Times ran an editorial on March 1, 2010, that read: "Stamp Out Burn Pits" We reprint here the first half of that editorial:

"A growing number of military medical professionals believe burn pits are causing a wave of respiratory and other illnesses among troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Found on almost all U.S. bases in the war zones, these open-air trash sites operate 24 hours a day, incinerating trash of all forms — including plastic bottles, paint, petroleum products, unexploded ordinance, hazardous materials, even amputated limbs and medical waste. Their smoke plumes belch dioxin, carbon monoxide and other toxins skyward, producing a toxic fog that hangs over living and working areas. Yet while the Air Force fact sheet flatly states that burn pits "can be harmful to human health and environment and should only be used until more suitable disposal capabilities are established," the Pentagon line is that burn pits have "no known long-term health effects."

On April 12, 2010, the Richmond Times-Dispatch carried an article by David Zucchino who investigated the American burn pits in Iraq. He interviewed Army Sgt. 1st Class Francis Jaeger who hauled military waste to the Balad burn pit which was being operated by a civilian contractor for the Pentagon. Jaeger told Zucchino:

"We were told to burn everything - electronics, bloody gauze, the medics’ biohazard bags, surgical gloves, cardboard. It all went up in smoke."

The Pentagon now admits to operating 84 "official" burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of unofficial burn pits is not known. The Pentagon claims that it is phasing out its burn pits in favor of incinerators and that 27 incinerators are currently operating in Iraq and Afghanistan with 82 more to be added in the near future.

According to a website called the "Burn Pits Action Center," hundreds of American veterans who came in contact with burn pit smoke have been diagnosed with cancer, neurological diseases, cardiovascular disease, breathing and sleeping problems and various skin rashes. In 2009, they filed more than 30 lawsuits in Federal courts across the United States, naming Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), and its former parent company Halliburton. These companies were named because of their involvement in the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan. Several KBR entities either managed or assisted in the management of the American military’s waste in both countries and allegedly operated some or all of the burn pits. Additional lawsuits were filed in 2010, including one in Federal District Court in New Jersey.

The lawsuits reveal that the Pentagon has ignored American and international environmental laws and the results appear to be the widespread release of hazardous pollutants into the air, soil, surface water and groundwater across Afghanistan. This is a persistent problem that continues today. Unlike Saudi Arabia which insisted that American forces cleanup their pollution after the war to oust Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, or the Government of Canada which likewise insisted on a strict cleanup of American bases on its soil, the Government of Afghanistan has been unable to force the Americans and their allies to repair all the environmental damage that they have caused and continue to cause. Afghanistan does not want to wind up like Vietnam. While American ground combat units withdrew from South Vietnam in 1972, neither Vietnam nor its people have recovered from the long term environmental damage and mutagenic effects that American military operations and their exotic chemicals caused.

This article summarizes the problem of America’s military wastes and examines the types of hazardous wastes that are likely to have been released into Afghanistan.

Part 2 of this series will address the contradictory responses by the Pentagon to this problem and it will explore one of the remedies that the Pentagon is currently implementing, which is to phase out the burn pits, replacing them with incinerators. The article examines the flaws in that strategy and why Afghanistan should carefully consider whether to permit the continued use of military incinerators.

Part 3 of this series will set out the recommendations of the author to the Government of Afghanistan on how to investigate and clean up the pollution of Afghanistan’s countryside caused by the burn pits, landfills and other disposal facilities used by American forces.
THE SOURCES OR MEANS BY WHICH THE VARIOUS WASTES ARE BEING RELEASED

The American military hazardous wastes that are believed to have entered the air, soil, groundwater and surface water of Afghanistan did so through the following methods (this list is partial only):

* Burn pits
* Incinerators
* Burying/landfilling of the waste and ash
* Intentional dumping
* Accidental spills
* Surface runoff
* Leaking storage tanks, sumps and basins
* Latrines

CATEGORIES OF AMERICAN MILITARY WASTE

The American military’s waste, at this time, cannot be completely characterized. The volume and variety of waste (i.e., thousands of different chemicals) are not known and there are certain to be classified items and materials which have been brought into Afghanistan for which there may be no documentation. Regardless of that, much is known about the materials and chemicals that the military routinely uses and about the waste that it routinely generates. Most American military wastes will falls into one of the following twelve (12) categories:

The Dirty Dozen:

1. Fuel leaks and spills. These include releases of aviation fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel. These releases would range from large releases at American airbases of hundreds or even thousands of liters, to minor spills at Forward Operating Bases and combat outposts as soldiers seek to refill diesel generators. Petroleum residues have the ability to leach rapidly into underground drinking water aquifers and create plumes that will permanently contaminate local wells. There is no known way to completely remediate a groundwater source after it has been contaminated with hydrocarbons.

2. Paints, asbestos, solvents, grease, cleaning solutions (such as perchloethylene) and building materials that contain formaldehyde, copper, arsenic and hydrogen cyanide.

3. Hydraulic fluids, aircraft de-icing fluids, antifreeze and used oil. Used oil is carcinogenic, anti-freeze is poisonous, de-icing fluids can contain hazardous ethylene and propylene glycol, along with toxic additives such as benzotriazoce (which is a corrosion and flame inhibitor). Hydraulic fluids can contain TPP (triphenyl phosphate).

4. Pesticide/poison leaks and spills: Afghanistan apparently has no list of the pesticides, fungicides, termiticides and other poisons that the Americans brought into Afghanistan and used, spilled and released into the countryside in order to control flies, mosquitos, ants, fleas and rodents. The military refers to such practices as "vector control." It is expected that the list of such neuro-toxins and the quantity sprayed or spilled throughout Afghanistan is staggering.

5. Lead, nickel, zinc and cadmium battery waste and acids (which are toxic and/or corrosive).

6. Electronic waste (or E-waste). This includes computers, printers, faxes, screens, televisions, radios, refrigerators, communications gear, test equipment. They contain cancer-causing chemicals such as the flame retardant PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), PCDD (polychlorinated dioxins), barium, copper, lead, zinc, cadmium oxides and cadmium sulphides and trivalent antimony, which is eco-toxic.

7. Light bulbs. This may not seem important but many military light bulbs are fluorescent and therefore contain toxic levels of mercury. Disposal of these light bulbs in ordinary landfills is prohibited in the United States.

8. Plastics. The U.S. military uses thousands of different types and formulations of plastic. While most are harmless in their present state, such as plastic water bottles and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) piping, the military has been burning its plastic waste in Afghanistan. When burned, many plastics release a deadly mix of chemicals including dioxins, furans, benzene, di 2-ethylhexyl phthalates (DEHP), hydrochloric acid, benzo(a)pyrene (BAP) and various acids and chlorine gas (which is a neurotoxin). Breathing a few seconds of this mixture in a concentrated form would likely be fatal.

9. Medical Waste. Infectious disease waste and biohazard materials, including used syringes, bloody bandages, sheets, gloves, expired drugs, amputated limbs and animal carcasses.

10. Ammunition waste. Lead, brass and other metals from ammunition along with all the constituents of the propellants, including trininitrotoluene, picric acid, diphenylamine, nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, potassium nitrate, barium nitrate, tetracene, diazodintrophenol, phosphorus, peroxides, thiocarbamate, potassium chlorate, vinyl fluoride, vinyl chloride, sodium fluoride and sodium sulfate.

11. Radioactive waste. When one thinks of radioactive waste, usually one thinks only of atomic weapons, but that is not the case. The American military routinely uses a variety of devices and equipment that contain radioactive elements or radioluminescent elements. These materials are referred to as "Radioactive Commodities" by the American military. The primary radioactive materials are: Uranium, Tritium, Radium 226, Americium 241, Thorium, Cesium 137 and Plutonium 239.

Some of the equipment containing radioactive elements:

* Night Vision Devices
* M-16 Front Sight Post Assemblies
* M72 Light Antitank Weapons
* T-55 Aircraft Engine components
* M58 and M59 Light Aiming Posts
* M4 Front Sight Post Assemblies
* RADIAC Calibrator Sets and Check Sources
* Radium Compasses
* L4A1 Quadrant Fire Control Devices
* Fire Control Azimuths
* Level Gauges
* M-1 Collimators
* M-1 Muzzle Reference Sensors
* Soil Moisture Density Testers
* TACOM Vehicle Dials and Gauges
* Radios, including VRC-46/GRC-106/GRC-19
* Chemical Agent Monitors
* Testing Instruments
* Vehicle Depleted Uranium Plates
* Depleted Uranium Ammunition, including 20 millimeter ammunition
* Electron Tubes for Communications Equipment
* Various types of Laboratory and Hospital Analysis and Testing Machines.

Note: The American military will likely insist that it strictly controls the disposal of radioactive waste, but such assertions are not credible. While there are strict regulations, the time and cost of complying with them in a war zone are such that base commanders in Afghanistan most likely ignored them, opting instead for throwing the waste into burn pits. The evidence for this is contained in Part 3 of this Report, which cites to a Pentagon-funded study of what American field commanders think of the Pentagon’s environmental regulations.

If the American military continues to insist that it did not release radioactive materials in Afghanistan it should document such assertions by releasing its records. The Pentagon should publicly release all data on every radioactive commodity brought into Afghanistan. They should all be listed in HMIRS (the Hazardous Materials Information System). The Pentagon should then detail where each commodity is today.

12. Grey and Black Water. The American military and its contractors in Afghanistan operate human waste facilities. The military refers to these as LSS (Latrine, Shower and Shave) facilities. They generate what is known as grey and black waste-water. Grey water from sinks and showers has as its primary pollutant soap residue (i.e., phosphates and other chemicals that generate what is known as BOD - biological oxygen demand, which means they can absorb all the available oxygen in streams and rivers so fish cannot breathe). Some American soaps contain additives such as MIT (methylisothiazolinone), which is under investigation as a toxin.

Latrines generate black water pollution. While the American military has to adhere to strict rules regarding the discharge of such waste in the United States, it faces no restrictions in Afghanistan. Latrines can be dug near ground water and even upgradient from surface water (so that discharges can flow into them). There are no known maps of all the American latrines. After a latrine pit is filled, it is apparently covered over with dirt and forgotten.

While environmental releases involving categories 1 and 12 above are a certainty, it is feared that millions of kilograms and millions of liters of wastes set out in categories 2 through 11 were all thrown into the hundreds of American burn pits in Afghanistan or dumped into secret landfills. If true, the American legacy to Afghanistan is not freedom, but pollution.

In February 2010, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs began an 18-month study of the burn pits in Afghanistan and their effect on human health. Afghanistan cannot wait eighteen months for the results of this study, it has to act now.

The author is a former U.S. Air Force Captain. He advised on environmental cleanups at Logistics Command regarding the Air Force’s most contaminated bases and depots. He then worked for Bechtel Environmental and was involved in Superfund cleanups across the United States and radiological cleanups at U.S. Department of Energy sites. He later served as a consultant to a group of environmental remediation companies, smelters and waste recyclers.

Sources for Further Reading:

Houston Chronicle - February 7, 2010 - "GIs tell of horror from burn pits"

Los Angeles Times - February 18, 2010 - "Veterans speak out against burn pits"

The New York Times - February 25, 2010 - "Health Panel Begins Probing Impacts of Burn Pits"

Salem-News - March 29, 2010 - "Sick Veterans Sue KBR Over Iraq and Afghanistan Burn Pits"

AFP - November 10, 2009 - "Troops sue KBR over toxic waste in Iraq, Afghanistan"

U.S. Department of the Army Pamphlet 700-48

http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m65401&hd=&size=1&l=e

INTRODUCTION
The events of September 11, 2001 in the United States and the subsequent conflict in Afghanistan have affected human lives around the world. The international community is preparing for the impact of these actions, and there has been much discussion about potential consequences and repercussions of the new war now being waged in Afghanistan. Almost all of this discussion and planning has been directed toward the political and, to a lesser extent, humanitarian issues that this war will generate. There has been virtually no consideration of the effects of this conflict on the environment of Afghanistan. This paper is to help focus attention on this burgeoning international environmental disaster and describe some of the specific effects of the war on Afghanistan's environment, including the humanitarian costs of ignoring the link between environmental degradation and political and economic stability.

THE ENVIRONMENT OF AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan has some of the most rugged terrain in the world. It is dominated by the mountains of the Hindu Kush range and to a lesser extent by the Pamir range in the north of the country. A number of these mountains reach over 20,000 feet above sea level (Mt. Rainier, the tallest mountain in the contiguous US, is (14,400 ft). However, much of the country consists of what appears to be an endless stretch of barren rocky hills and low mountains. This broken ground has enabled the people of Afghanistan to fight off numerous invaders, including three wars against the British (1839, 1878, 1921) and most recently the invasion by the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This same terrain that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into the hills has also, historically, enabled wildlife to survive in what appears to be an unforgiving landscape. Mountain ecosystems are important reservoirs of biodiversity. Their isolated nature tends to encourage speciation and the creation of unusual and endemic species specifically adapted to the extreme rigors of mountain life. Afghanistan represents the western edge of the Greater Himalayan mountain chain. This chain was born 70 million years ago when the Indian subcontinent slowly ground into the Asian land mass, raising the largest and highest mountains in the world. The Western Himalayas, because of its isolation and unique ecosystems, is listed as a Global 200 Ecoregion, an Endemic Bird Area of Urgent Biological Importance, and a Center of Floral Endemism. Plants and wildlife in desert and mountain systems are often wonderfully adapted to the rigors of these habitats. However, the harsh conditions make these systems especially fragile and put them at risk from sudden changes, and both deserts and mountains are notoriously slow in recovering from damage. Desertification and slope erosion are two examples of events that occur from damage to these ecosystems, and both are extremely difficult (and expensive) to reverse. Changes that degrade these systems can also easily result in local extinctions of plants and animals.

WILDLIFE IN AFGHANISTAN
Unfortunately, Afghanistan has had almost no history of conservation efforts. Lack of environmental protection combined with a burgeoning human population entirely dependent upon increasingly scarce natural resources has driven many species of plants and animals to the brink of extinction. Seventy-five species of animals and plants found in Afghanistan have been placed on the IUCN Red List (IUCN, 2000), with 35 species of animals listed as either Vulnerable or Endangered.

CONSERVATION IN AFGHANISTAN
Previous to the war with the Soviet Union, hunting and the fur trade was an extensive business in Afghanistan. It was estimated in 1977 that the fur trade involved over 4,000 professional hunters, 25,000 full or part-time smugglers, and a total income of over $4.5 million U.S. (Adil, 1995). After the war, strategies to establish regulations on hunting, creating protected areas, and ecosystem rehabilitation were identified. However, with a lack of a solid and unified government, a descent into civil war, and the resultant severe humanitarian needs, environmental conservation efforts have not been on the forefront of priorities. With the continued political upheaval and civil war, environmental and conservation efforts in Afghanistan have essentially been ignored. This situation has been exacerbated by a recent three-year drought that has affected most of Central Asia, including Afghanistan. This drought has helped to push a continuing downward spiral of environmental degradation into a full-fledged environmental disaster.
DIRECT EFFECTS OF THE PRESENT CONFLICT IN AFGHANISTAN

Bombing
Many military analysts believe that there will be an extensive ground war that will consist of guerrilla warfare, primarily between the Taliban and the combined anti-Taliban forces. Heavy air strikes have been targeting these regions, undoubtedly disturbing and even killing animals in the area. Bombing and ground fighting will also affect other species, such as the large numbers of migratory birds that travel down from northern and central Russia through the Afghanistan highlands to their wintering grounds in India. Endangered species such as cranes and pelicans depend upon staging areas in Afghanistan to rest and find food during the long migration. Disturbance from bombing, aircraft flyovers, and troop activities can drive the birds from these critically important staging areas, with the result that the birds face possible death from exhaustion and starvation.

http://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=786

Environmental Damage Seen At Military Sites Abroad


Wednesday, November 17, 1999


The question of how the United States should deal with environmental contamination at its military sites abroad is emerging as a "prickly" financial and diplomatic issue, reports the Boston Globe.
Last month, representatives from a dozen countries met in Washington and lobbied members of Congress to help remove hazardous wastes from overseas facilities. "It is an important moral issue and public health issue and environmental issue," said John Lindsay-Poland, an American activist who has studied base contamination in Panama and Puerto Rico.
Here's a look at some of the countries allegedly contaminated by the US military:

GERMANY: The Department of Defense's inspector-general this year said cleanup costs are expected to total at least $1 billion. Germany is host to one of the largest contingents of American forces overseas, with some 70,000 active duty personnel stationed there. Last year, the military reported projects to clean up landfills, remove PCBs, repair sewage treatment plants and remediate contaminated soil.
JAPAN: A Japanese environmental group, NEPA Coalition of Japan, has documented severe contamination at the Yokosuka US naval base. The group says a September 1998 report found soil contaminated with lead at 150 times the Japanese standard; arsenic at 10 times the limit; and mercury at a level 440 times greater than Japanese standards. Ground water was tainted by lead at 520 times the national standard. The group also said it has found pollution at several other bases, including the dumping of PCBs into a pond and the systematic dumping of oil-contaminated water into public sewage systems.
PANAMA: The US military is currently cleaning thousands of acres of firing ranges and weapons-testing sites used by soldiers throughout this century. The cleanup, however, has been controversial, with Panamanian government officials complaining about the thoroughness of the work and a lack of information provided by the Pentagon (David Armstrong, Boston Globe, 15 Nov).

All Parts Of The World Affected
In a related four-part series that began on 14 November, Boston Globe reporter David Armstrong describes the "legacy" of American military operations abroad and how local populations are affected. According to Armstrong, "Virtually no part of the world is untouched by environmental hazards generated by the US military. A recent Pentagon report cited environmental problems at bases in Greenland, Spain, Japan, Panama, Italy, Iceland and the United Kingdom."
In the Philippines, hundreds of children born and raised near the Clark Air Base are unable to walk or talk. "Their growth is stunted and their muscles refuse to cooperate. They suffer from spasms and seizures. Most are unable to eat solid food."
Armstrong tells the story of how former barracks became homes for families who planted corn and rice in the fields next to runways once used by American fighter jets. The residents tapped wells on the base for water.
"What the families didn't know was that the land was contaminated with the residue of chemicals, insecticides and hazardous waste generated by the Air Force, according to US government records and a study by an American engineering firm," Armstrong writes. "Unknowing mothers mixed their baby formula with water tainted by mercury, gasoline and bacteria. For years, the residents of the former air base drank the water, used it to bathe their children and water their crops, never suspecting it may be the reason why people were getting sick" (Armstrong, Boston Globe, 15 Nov).

http://www.unwire.org/unwire/19991117/5868_story.asp

DEFENSE DEPT.: U.S. weighs cleanups as it crafts Iraq exit strategy (Greenwire, 01/13/2010)
Email this Story Print this Story Dina Fine Maron, E&E reporter
As the U.S. military prepares to leave Iraq, the Pentagon is wrestling with questions about environmental cleanup on the bases it plans to transfer to the Iraqi Army by December 2011.

At issue on and around the bases are unexploded ordinance, depleted uranium from munitions, spilled oil and contaminated ash in burn pits.

There is no set answer about what -- if anything -- the military must do to mitigate environmental damage. Though there are clear environmental policies for permanent U.S. bases overseas, they do not apply to contingency operations like those in Iraq.

"There's nothing in international law, U.S. law, or executive orders that guide [U.S.] policy" in such operations, said David Mosher, a senior policy fellow at RAND and co-author of a 2008 report for the Army on environmental considerations during contingency operations. "It's a huge loophole," he said. "There's nothing in DOD policy that says anything should be done."


After the 1991 Gulf War, destroyed and damaged military vehicles were abandoned in Kuwait and posed a major cleanup challenge. Photo by Peter Turnley, Corbis, courtesy of UNEP.
The November 2008 security agreement between Iraq and the United States includes a short section referring to U.S. environmental responsibilities, but it has no specifics. It merely says, "Both parties shall implement this Agreement in a manner consistent with protecting the natural environment and human health and safety."

Historically, war zones have been left strewn with unexploded bombs, chemical weapons and herbicides. While there have been serious public health consequences in some instances and lawsuits for damages, countries rarely volunteer to pay for the environmental fallout from their operations.

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, for example, Iraq's neighbors submitted environmental damage claims to the U.N. Compensation Commission totaling more than $80 billion. The United Nations subsequently awarded environmental compensation amounting to more than $5 billion.

Though military experts note that the environment is a victim in almost any conflict, there are steps that could be taken to lessen long-term consequences. Still, while it's possible to craft mission plans with sustainability considerations in mind, they say, any policy that could limit military operations would be difficult to get off the ground.

As a U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) guidance put it last fall: "During combat operations environmental considerations will be subordinate to mission accomplishment and preservation of human life, but cannot be ignored."

The guidance calls for CENTCOM to ensure that its forces clean up hazardous materials and any environmental contamination that could endanger the health and safety of its forces or the host nation. It also offers this suggestion for U.S. forces: "Develop a plan to return the area to its original or better condition that includes directions/actions required for areas that cannot be returned to original (or better) condition."

Still, there's no enforcement mechanism, and a guidance is not a rule. And further complicating matters is an unprecedented number of contractors performing cleanup work.

Weighing the extent of U.S. cleanup operations versus cost considerations is a "balancing act," Mosher said. "It comes back to what we are doing there. What's our long-term goal?"

The Defense Department's answer: "Our goal is to return bases to the Government of Iraq in condition supporting the safe reuse of properties."

But Col. Tim Hill, director of the Army's "Green Warrior Initiative," argues that future counterinsurgency strategies should incorporate environmental considerations into everything they do. His group was put together last spring to look into these issues following a review of the RAND study findings.

For Hill, the motivating factor behind incorporating environmental considerations into military operations is about more than doing the right thing. His role as director of this new task force, he said, is to "change the culture of the Army," to find ways to fight a counterinsurgency that considers environmental and sustainability issues.

"We can use environmental considerations as tools of engagement to assist and as a means of building trust and confidence," Hill said. "I don't believe we can win hearts and minds [in the Middle East] ... but I do believe we can build trust and confidence, which is different," he said.

Undocumented problems
In the heat of battle, soldiers are unlikely to take note of spills in refueling operations and other environmental problems, so there are likely to be a number of undocumented environmentally damaging incidents.

But just addressing the environmental degradation the United States is aware of -- and discerning what damage pre-dated 2003 -- could be a large project.

Consider the military's challenge of disposing of solid waste.

In a contingency operation, each American solider generates 9 to 12 pounds of refuse a day, according to DOD figures. That waste must be burned in incinerators or pits or trucked to landfills. Burn pits come with their own environmental and health hazards, and trucking waste outside a country can sometimes be complicated by international agreements meant to prevent developing countries from becoming dumping grounds (Greenwire, Nov. 11, 2009).

Then there are undetonated weapons. U.S. military officials estimate that 3 to 5 percent of bombs, rockets and shells fail to explode. In areas with soft sand, that rate may rise as high as 15 percent, according to the U.N. Environment Programme.

To get an idea of the scope of the potential cleanup: At the height of the Iraq conflict, the U.S. and multinational forces occupied some 300 sites that have been or will be shuttered or turned over to the Iraqi Army.

Since 2007, 260 bases and facilities have closed, according to DOD. Environmental cleanup operations such as hazardous-waste disposal and burn pit, firing range and wastewater cleanups were "performed for each base or facility depending on the environmental features present, site-specific conditions and the planned reuse for the property," a DOD spokesman said.

Liability issues
Decades of environmental mismanagement and more than a quarter-century of conflicts destroyed vast swaths of Iraq's landscape prior to the current war. From a liability standpoint, discerning what damage is a result of U.S. action in Iraq is another crucial part of cleanup operations.

Still, as part of the drawdown, the United States has tackled cleanup of some sites officials say predated its presence in Iraq.

U.S. troops in southern Basra, for example, cleaned an oil spill and contaminated soil around a generator at an operations center they expect to transfer to the Iraqi Army this month. The U.S. military, however, says the damage was from previous tenants at the site. The price tag to remove all the contaminated soil, transport it to a proper waste disposal facility and implement a precautionary spillage management system under the generator was $9,800, they say.

It has long been part of Pentagon doctrine for U.S. forces to conduct baseline environmental quality assessments when forces stay in an area longer than 30 days -- partly to ensure the United States won't be held responsible for environmental conditions that weren't its fault and partly to protect service members.

However, that policy has not always been thoroughly enforced, said Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for environment, safety and occupational health. A policy officially calling for environmental baseline assessment was laid out around 2008, he said.

"We put out the policy, and the policy is still in the process of being implemented throughout the service," he said. "I think that more folks are being made aware of it and have a greater appreciation of the benefits of doing it."

http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2010/01/13/3