Military Munitions Response Program: Opportunities Exist to Improve Program Management
Published: 2010-04-09T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: The Department of Defense (DOD) established the military munitions response program (MMRP) in 2001 to clean up sites known to be or suspected of being contaminated with military munitions and related hazardous substances. Cleanup of sites on active and base realignment and closure installations is the responsibility of the military service--Air Force, Army, Navy, or Marine Corps--that currently controls the land, and the Army has delegated execution of cleanup of formerly used defense sites (FUDS) to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). GAO was mandated to assess the (1) MMRP staffing and funding levels; (2) progress DOD has made in cleaning up munitions response sites; (3) extent to which DOD has established MMRP performance goals; and (4) extent to which DOD collects data on factors influencing project duration, as well as the accuracy of its cleanup cost estimates. GAO analyzed MMRP data and DOD documents and interviewed officials from DOD, the military services, and the Corps.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The military services and the Corps do not track the time that staff work on MMRP activities separately from the time they spend on another environmental restoration program--the Installation Restoration Program (IRP). Consequently, it is not possible to determine the staffing levels for the MMRP. In addition, obligated funds for the MMRP increased from $95 million in fiscal year 2002 to approximately $284 million in fiscal year 2008, and the military services and the Corps directed 11 percent of their total MMRP and IRP environmental restoration funds to the MMRP during the period--a total of about $1.2 billion to the MMRP compared with $9.7 billion to the IRP. DOD reported to Congress that it had completed its cleanup response for 1,318 of its 3,674 sites by the end of fiscal year 2008; however, for 1,234 of these sites, DOD's response was an investigation that determined cleanup was not necessary. The remaining 84 sites were cleaned up because of such factors as imminent danger to public safety and pressing military mission and land reuse needs. In addition, the military services and the Corps are still in the process of gathering information necessary to prioritize most sites in the MMRP inventory for cleanup. When this process is complete, the military services and the Corps will consider this information along with other factors, such as land reuse plans, to determine which sites to clean up first. However, DOD has not issued guidance on how factors other than risk should be considered when making decisions about which sites to sequence first for cleanup, and the Air Force, the Army, and the Corps have begun to independently develop their own approaches. Using varying approaches could lead to inconsistent sequencing decisions. DOD has not yet established a performance goal for implementing the cleanup remedy (referred to as "remedy in place") or achieving the cleanup objective (referred to as "response complete") at munitions response sites located on FUDS, as required by the fiscal year 2007 National Defense Authorization Act. The act also directs DOD to report on interim goals it determines feasible for achieving the performance goals, but DOD has not yet done so. Performance goals are important because they are used to track progress toward cleaning up munitions response sites. By establishing goals, DOD would have better information with which to measure MMRP progress. DOD gathers data on two of the factors--site size and type of hazard--that can influence project duration at military munitions response sites. As would be expected, these data indicate that the larger the munitions response site and the more complex the type of hazard, the longer it takes to clean up the site. In addition, because data on funds obligated to complete specific phases of the cleanup process are not included in DOD's database for many munitions response sites, it is not possible to assess the accuracy of the military services' and the Corps' cost estimates for the MMRP.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The Department of Defense (DOD) has identified over 3,600 sites known  to be, or suspected of being, contaminated with military munitions from  training and other activities. These sites can pose risks to human health  and the environment. Military munitions include unexploded ordnance  (explosives that were fired but did not detonate as planned), discarded  military munitions (munitions that were abandoned without proper  disposal), and munitions constituents (propellants or other materials  originating from munitions). Sites that contain munitions (other than  operational ranges) that require a response from DOD are known as  munitions response sites. These sites are located on active installations,  base realignment and closure (BRAC) installations, and formerly used  defense sites (FUDS) across the country. About half of the land on which  munitions response sites are located has been or will be converted to  nonmilitary uses, which may include residential or commercial  development and recreation, according to DOD officials.
Under its Defense Environmental Restoration Program, DOD identifies,  investigates, and cleans up contamination from hazardous substances,  pollutants, and contaminants including military munitions at active, BRAC,  and FUDS locations that were contaminated while under DOD’s  jurisdiction. To carry out activities under the Defense Environmental  Restoration Program, over time DOD has established three programs,  including the Installation Restoration Program (IRP) and the Military  Munitions Response Program (MMRP). Specifically, in 1985, DOD  established the IRP to address the release of hazardous substances and  other contamination, and most of DOD’s environmental remediation work  to date has been conducted under this program. In 2001, DOD established  the MMRP, which focuses on remediating unexploded ordnance,  discarded military munitions, and munitions constituents on munitions  response sites. Cleanup of munitions response sites on active and BRAC  installations is the responsibility of the military service—Air Force, Army,  or Navy—that currently controls the land, and cleanup of FUDS sites is  the responsibility of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). While  DOD has overall responsibility for the MMRP, it allows each of the military  services and the Corps to implement and manage their own munitions  response programs, including determining how best to organize their  programs, set program and funding priorities, and track management  information, in accordance with DOD policies and guidance.
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2009 mandated that  we review and report to Congress by October 14, 2009, on various aspects  of DOD’s organization, operation, and management of the MMRP. We  briefed the staffs of the Senate and House Committees on Armed Services  on October 14, 2009. We are following up with this report, which provides  more detail on the topics covered in the briefing. As agreed with your  offices, this report assesses the (1) MMRP staffing and funding levels;   (2) progress DOD has made in cleaning up munitions response sites;   (3) extent to which DOD has established MMRP performance goals; and  (4) extent to which DOD collects data on factors influencing project  duration, as well as the accuracy of DOD’s cleanup cost estimates.
In addressing these objectives, we reviewed each of the individual MMRPs  as implemented by the Air Force, Army, Navy, and the Corps at active and  BRAC installations and FUDS. We analyzed MMRP funding data, as well as  data in DOD’s environmental programs management database—known as  the Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System—which includes  relative priority scores, project duration, and cost estimates. We reviewed  key documents, such as DOD’s Defense Environmental Programs Annual  Report to Congress, which includes information on program performance  goals, and the Munitions Response Site Prioritization Protocol that is used  to assign a relative priority to sites in order to prioritize sites for cleanup.  We visited one BRAC installation (Fort Ord), one active installation (Beale  Air Force Base), and one FUDS (Camp Beale) to ensure we had the  opportunity to review various types of MMRP activities at active and  BRAC installations, as well as FUDS. We met with and obtained  information and data needed for our review from a key senior DOD official  responsible for the MMRP within DOD’s Office of the Deputy Under  Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment); and we interviewed  senior officials from the Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Corps. We also  interviewed headquarters and regional officials from the Environmental  Protection Agency to discuss the MMRP.
We assessed the reliability of data for certain variables related to our  objectives in DOD’s Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System, by  electronically testing for obvious errors in accuracy and completeness,  reviewing information about the data and the system that produced them,  and interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about the data. When we  found inconsistencies in the data, we worked with DOD officials to clarify  them before conducting our analyses. We determined that the data were  sufficiently reliable for the purposes of providing basic descriptive  information about the MMRP and for analyzing the duration of phases of  the cleanup process. However, we found data on funds obligated for  cleanup to be incomplete and therefore not suitable for analysis. We  discuss this data reliability problem in more detail later in the report. We  conducted this performance audit from January 2009 to April 2010 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those  standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient,  appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and  conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence  obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions  based on our audit objectives. Appendix I provides additional detail on our  scope and methodology.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2002 requires DOD  to develop and maintain an inventory of defense sites known or suspected  to contain unexploded ordnance, discarded military munitions, or  munitions constituents and to annually update the inventory and list  prioritizing these sites for cleanup. Figure 1 shows an example of  unexploded ordnance found at a munitions response site on Beale Air  Force Base in 2008.
As of fiscal year 2008, DOD had identified 3,674 munitions response sites  in the United States and its territories and outlying areas. Figure 2 shows  the number of sites in each state and in United States territories and  outlying areas.
The majority of munitions response sites are located on active installations  (46 percent) and FUDS (45 percent), with the remainder located on BRAC  installations (9 percent). The Corps is responsible for cleanup at 45  percent (1,661) of the munitions response sites, the Army for 29 percent  (1,080), the Air Force for 18 percent (644), and the Navy for 8 percent  (289), as shown in figure 3.
Each of the military services and the Corps have established their own  individual organizational structures to implement the MMRP. These  structures, which are similar to the structures of their respective IRPs,  have various levels of management, but for ease of discussion, we have  identified three broad levels of management. At the operational level, key  responsibilities rest with project managers who directly oversee MMRP  activities at Army, Air Force, and Navy active and BRAC installations and  at FUDS. The project managers’ responsibilities may include planning  munitions response actions, developing cleanup cost estimates,  coordinating with stakeholders, and ensuring oversight of program  activities, such as monitoring technical work conducted by the contractors  who are responsible for various aspects of the cleanup process. Next, at  the middle-management level, managers provide direct oversight of MMRP  activities conducted at the operational level and also serve as liaisons  between the operational level and the top leadership level of the  organization. Managers at the middle-management level may be  responsible for monitoring MMRP activities, such as reviewing cleanup  plans developed at the operational level, determining operational level  funding, and ensuring that their munitions response programs are in  compliance with applicable laws and policies. Finally, managers at the  leadership level of the organization may conduct program reviews to  ensure MMRP activities implemented by the operational and middle- management levels are in compliance with applicable laws, regulations,  and DOD policy and to approve funding requests for munitions response  actions that have been recommended by the levels below them.
70 Fed. Reg. 58,016 (Oct. 5, 2005) (codified at 32 C.F.R. Pt. 179 (2010)). able to complete at least one of the protocol’s modules, it assigns the site a  relative priority score of one through eight, with one representing the  highest priority or greatest risk and eight the lowest priority or lowest risk.  The military services and the Corps may not assign a relative priority score  to some sites and instead assign one of the following alternative  designations:    Evaluation pending. Indicates that there are known or suspected hazards  present but that sufficient information is not available to populate the data  elements for at least one of the modules and the site requires further  evaluation.
No longer required. Indicates that the site no longer requires a priority  score because DOD has conducted a response action and determined that  no further action is required.
No known or suspected hazard. Indicates that the site does not require an  evaluation to determine a relative priority score because review of the site  concluded that no hazards are present.
According to DOD’s policy, the military services and the Corps will clean  up munitions response sites with a higher relative priority score before a  site with a lower score. However, the military services and the Corps also  can consider other factors, such as military mission needs, land reuse  plans, and stakeholder concerns, in determining which sites to clean up  first. DOD refers to the process of deciding which sites to clean up first  based on relative priority scores in combination with other factors as  “sequencing” sites for cleanup.
In deciding what actions, if any, are needed to clean up a site identified as  potentially contaminated with military munitions, DOD officials told us  that the military services and the Corps follow the process established   under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and  Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980.
Pub. L. No. 96-510, as amended. A key law amending CERCLA was the Superfund  Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-499 (1986), which provided  that federal agencies “shall be subject to, and comply with, this Act in the same manner and  to the same extent, both procedurally and substantively,” as any private party. Id., § 120.  See 42 U.S.C. § 9620 (2010).
For complete descriptions, see 40 C.F.R. §§ 300.420, 300.430, 300.435 (2010).
After a site reaches response complete, the military services and the Corps may conduct  long-term management at the site. For example, they may monitor environmental  conditions, enforce land use controls, and maintain any remedies to ensure continued  protection as designed. Long-term management occurs until no further environmental  restoration response actions are appropriate or anticipated.
section_title: The Military Services and the Corps Do Not Track MMRP Staffing Levels, and the MMRP Receives a Small Share of DOD’s Environmental Restoration Funds
paragraphs: According to a senior DOD official, DOD does not require the military  services or the Corps to track the time they spend working on MMRP  activities separately from the time they spend working on other  environmental restoration program activities. As a result, we were unable  to determine the staffing levels dedicated to the MMRP. According to  officials from the Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Corps, their staff support  both the IRP and the MMRP. However, these officials told us they do not  separately track the time that staff spend working on each of the two  programs because Congress does not appropriate funding for these  programs separately and tracking staff time separately would add no value  to accomplishing cleanup of these sites. Moreover, a senior Army official  told us that the extent to which staff work on the IRP and MMRP varies  greatly among employees from day to day, making it extremely difficult to  quantify the time devoted to each program.
DOD provides the military services and the Corps combined annual  funding for all of their environmental restoration programs. It is the  responsibility of the military services and the Corps to make decisions  about how to prioritize that funding among their environmental programs,  such as the IRP and MMRP. Between 2002 and 2008, the military services  and the Corps directed most of their IRP and MMRP environmental  restoration funds to their respective IRPs—a total of about $9.7 billion  compared with the approximately $1.2 billion they directed to their  respective MMRPs (see fig. 5).
The term “obligations” refers to the amount of money the military services and the Corps  legally committed for payment.
section_title: Most Sites That DOD Has Reported as Response Complete Did Not Require Cleanup, and Cleanup Priorities Are Still Being Determined for the Majority of Sites
paragraphs: DOD reported to Congress that it had achieved response complete at more  than one-third of its munitions response sites by the end of fiscal year  2008. According to DOD, most of these sites did not require cleanup under  the MMRP. For the small number of sites where the military services and  the Corps have conducted cleanup activities under the MMRP, a variety of  factors influenced the selection of these sites, including immediate danger  to public safety and pressing military mission needs. However, for the  majority of sites in the MMRP inventory, the military services and the  Corps are still in the process of gathering information necessary to assess  the sites’ relative risk levels in order to set cleanup priorities. In some  cases, they have also begun to develop approaches to sequencing their  respective sites for cleanup.
subsections: section_title: Most Sites DOD Reported as Response Complete Did Not Require Cleanup, although DOD Has Cleaned Up a Small Number of Sites for Various Reasons
paragraphs: DOD, Defense Environmental Programs Annual Report to Congress (Fiscal Year 2008),  pp.16-17. be currently in use by the military); (2) they were merged with other sites  and therefore ceased to exist as independent sites; (3) they never actually  existed and were added to the inventory in error; or (4) the hazard was not  of DOD origin and therefore not DOD’s responsibility to clean up.
Since 2001, we have been concerned about the lack of clarity in DOD’s  approach for reporting on response complete sites. That year we  recommended that DOD exclude projects from its “completed” list that did  not require actual cleanup and were closed solely as the result of an  administrative action. Nevertheless, the department  disagreed with our recommendation, and its environmental programs  annual reports to Congress since 2001 have continued to report  administratively closed sites as response complete with very limited  explanation. Specifically, in its fiscal year 2008 annual report, DOD  mentioned in a note to a figure that the response complete category  included both sites it cleaned up and sites that did not require actual  cleanup, which we have defined as administratively closed. A senior DOD  official told us that DOD reports administratively closed sites and sites  that were actually cleaned up as response complete because in both cases  it has completed its response under the CERCLA process. Nonetheless,  because DOD does not clearly and prominently explain in its reports that  many of these sites were not actually cleaned up under the MMRP, we  continue to believe that the information being provided to Congress and  the public is misleading and overstates the level of progress made cleaning  up sites under the MMRP.
GAO, Environmental Contamination: Cleanup Actions at Formerly Used Defense Sites,  GAO-01-557 (Washington, D.C.: July 31, 2001).
Our analysis indicates that the military services and the Corps have  conducted cleanup activities under the MMRP at 84 of the 1,318 sites it  reported as response complete as of fiscal year 2008, as shown in figure 7.
According to military service and Corps officials, these sites were selected  for cleanup based on an assessment of relative risk and other factors.  These other factors included imminent danger to public safety, pressing  military mission needs, land reuse plans, and stakeholder concerns, for  example:  Imminent danger. According to a senior Army official, the Corps cleaned  up the Dolly Sods North FUDS, located in the Monongahela National  Forest in West Virginia, for imminent danger reasons. This site had been  assigned a medium risk assessment code score. Hikers visiting the site— a wilderness area currently owned by the U.S. Forest Service and visited  by approximately 60,000 people annually—reported finding military  munitions on the ground. For example, in 1996, a piece of live ordnance  was found about 300 feet from a visitor parking lot. As a result, the Corps  took cleanup actions that involved removing ordnance from trail areas and  campsites because it determined that these items presented an imminent  danger to the public. The Corps completed the cleanup in 2000 and also  implemented an explosives safety education program for visitors to the  site, which is ongoing.
Mission needs. According to Air Force officials, the Air Force selected the  sole munitions response site at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas for  cleanup in fiscal year 2009 to meet mission needs, even though it received  a low prioritization protocol score. The factors that drove the decision to  clean up this site were that (1) the site is a possible location for a future  Security Forces Regional Training Center, and (2) by cleaning up the only  MMRP site on the base, it would release the entire base from the program  and thus reduce related administrative costs. The Air Force estimates that  site cleanup will be complete in fiscal year 2010.
Land reuse plans. According to a senior Army official, the Army funded  cleanup work done by a local redevelopment authority on a munitions  response site at Fort Ord, a BRAC installation near Monterey, California,  to meet land reuse plans, even though the Army assigned the site a  medium risk assessment code score and has not scored it under the  munitions response site prioritization protocol. The Army initiated cleanup  at this site largely in response to the community’s request to implement a  land reuse plan to construct a veterans’ cemetery. The central California  coast region currently lacks burial space for the approximately 50,000  veterans residing in the area, some of whom served in World War II and  now wish to be buried at Fort Ord. According to a senior Army official, as  of January 2010, the redevelopment authority had completed cleanup, and  the veterans’ cemetery can be developed as soon as funding is available.
Stakeholder concerns. According to a senior Army official, the Corps  decided to clean up the Torpedo and Bombing Range FUDS at Pyramid  Lake northeast of Reno, Nevada, because of stakeholder concerns, even  though the Corps assigned the site a low risk assessment code score.
Consequently, during fiscal year 2007—the year  the military services and the Corps began reporting prioritization protocol  scores—and fiscal year 2008, the military services were only able to report  relative priority scores to DOD for 432 sites, or 19 percent of the 2,333  munitions response sites that needed scoring. Specifically, the Air Force  reported scores for 53 sites, or 13 percent of its 417 sites; the Army  reported scores for 175 sites, or 29 percent of its 603 sites; and the Navy  reported scores for 204 sites, or 89 percent of its 230 sites. The military  services and the Corps assigned the remaining 1,901 sites the alternative  rating “evaluation pending” as of the end of fiscal year 2008, indicating that  they needed more information before they could calculate relative priority  scores.
This site would not have been scored using the Munitions Response Site Prioritization  Protocol because cleanup was completed in 2006. not yet been finalized pending an internal review. The same official said  that the Corps will report scores for about 600 sites to DOD by the end of  fiscal year 2010 and will report scores for the remaining sites by fiscal year  2014. The percentage of sites with reported scores by military service and  the Corps is shown in figure 8.
After they have assigned prioritization protocol scores to all of their sites,  each of the military services and the Corps are to determine which sites to  sequence and allocate funding to first for the next phase of the cleanup  process.
DOD’s regulation establishing the Munitions Response Site Prioritization Protocol  provides for subsequent sequencing to consider other factors and provides a nonexclusive  list of example factors, such as mission needs and stakeholder input. The military services  and the Corps are to use their installation-specific management action plans—plans that  describe an integrated, coordinated approach for conducting all required environmental  restoration activities, including schedules and cost estimates—as a vehicle for sequencing.  The regulation does not, however, establish a methodology for how such other factors are  to be considered. decisions. In the absence of guidance from DOD that establishes a  consistent set of requirements, we found that the Air Force, Army, and the  Corps have begun to independently develop their own approaches for  sequencing, and the Navy has not yet determined whether it needs to  develop such an approach. Specifically, we found the following:    The Air Force has developed detailed, written guidance for incorporating  factors other than risk into its site sequencing decisions. The guidance  requires the use of a numerical scoring process that incorporates  prioritization protocol scores, as well as legal, scheduling, and mission  factors, to sequence its sites for cleanup. According to Air Force officials,  the Air Force is applying this approach to a single pool of both IRP and  MMRP sites, which they believe allows them to fund cleanups of the  highest-priority sites first across both programs. In addition, a senior Air  Force official told us that using the standardized process ensures fairness  and transparency in site sequencing.
According to a senior Army official, the Army is currently developing a  sequencing policy that it hopes to release by May 2010, which will apply to  sites managed by both the Army and the Corps. The policy will likely  require program managers to document the reasons for their sequencing  decisions to facilitate transparency and allow for more effective Army  oversight. However, the official said that the Army does not plan to require  a particular approach to sequencing and believes a quantitative approach  similar to the Air Force’s approach could be too restrictive and not allow  adequate flexibility for decision making.
According to a senior Navy official, it is too early to determine whether the  Navy needs to issue additional guidance beyond the framework that  establishes the prioritization protocol and sequencing considerations  currently provided in the DOD regulations. According to the official,  although the Navy has initially prioritized many sites based on preliminary  assessment data, it does not expect to begin fully sequencing sites until  2011, when it completes site inspections and applies the data gathered to  generate relative priority scores. The Navy will wait to see if it encounters  any difficulties before deciding on whether to develop additional guidance.
According to a senior DOD official, the department plans to give the  military services and the Corps the flexibility to make sequencing  decisions as they see fit. This official said that the military services and the  Corps have experience making sequencing decisions for the IRP, and DOD  has not encountered any problems with these decisions. As a result, the  official said DOD sees no need to provide guidance on how factors other  than risk should be considered when making decisions about which sites  to sequence first for cleanup. However, in the absence of such guidance,  the military services and the Corps may not consistently (1) consider the  same range of factors in making their decisions or (2) give the same  relative significance to risk and other factors in making their cleanup  sequencing decisions. As a result, we believe that this could impact the  consistency and transparency of sequencing decisions.
section_title: DOD Has Not Established a Key Performance Goal for Its MMRP at FUDS, as Required by Law, and Has Not Determined and Reported on the Feasibility of Interim Goals
paragraphs: DOD has not yet implemented the statutory requirement contained in the  fiscal year 2007 National Defense Authorization Act to establish a key  performance goal for reaching remedy in place or response complete at  munitions response sites on FUDS, although DOD has established the  required performance goals for active and BRAC 2005 sites.
After a final remedial action has been constructed and is operating as planned, DOD  describes the site status as remedy in place. While operation of the remedy is ongoing but  cleanup objectives have not yet been met, the site cannot be considered response  complete. DOD categorizes sites as response complete at any point in the process when it  determines no further response is appropriate, including sites without a remedy in place.  According to DOD, such determinations are made in conjunction with regulators and  stakeholders. complete performance goals. However, DOD has not yet determined  whether such goals are feasible—the necessary initial step before  reporting interim goals. A senior DOD official said that DOD will  determine whether interim goals are feasible after the military services  and the Corps have completed the site inspection phase for all munitions  response sites, which they expect to do by the end of fiscal year 2010. The  DOD official said that it is not practical for DOD to establish interim goals  without first understanding the nature and extent of cleanup requirements  at munitions response sites. However, DOD was able to establish its  performance goals for reaching remedy in place or response complete for  munitions response sites at active and BRAC 2005 installations, and we  believe DOD should therefore be able to determine the feasibility of  related interim goals. Furthermore, until DOD determines whether interim  goals are feasible, and if so, reports them to Congress, DOD will not have  addressed this requirement. Moreover, since DOD’s MMRP remedy in  place or response complete performance goals are long-term—2017 for  sites at BRAC 2005 installations, 2020 for sites at active installations, and  possibly 2060 or later for FUDS—without this determination and reporting  of interim goals, Congress may have limited information with which to  measure progress of the MMRP over the next decade.
section_title: DOD Collects Limited Data on Factors That Can Affect MMRP Project Duration, and Incomplete Data Prevent an Assessment of the Accuracy of Its MMRP Cost Estimates
paragraphs: DOD collects data on two of the many factors that can influence project  duration at munitions response sites.
We measured project duration, which was calculated using both month and year  information, as the length of time between the earliest phase start date and the latest phase  end date. For the purposes of our analysis, if the most recent phase was still in process, we  used September 2008 as the end date because that was the latest date for which we had  Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System data.
The military services and the Corps report funds obligated for cleanup activities at  munitions response sites in a fiscal year to DOD.
Officials from the military services and the Corps told us that a number of  other factors can influence project duration, but DOD’s database does not  include information on these factors, which include the following:    The need to achieve consensus with stakeholders, such as regulators or  community members, can increase project duration. For example, failure  to reach consensus with regulators increased project duration at the  Jackson Park Naval Housing Complex, according to Navy officials. One  area of disagreement between Navy officials and federal regulators was  over the number of detected metal pieces that needed to be excavated  during the remedial investigation phase. Federal regulators wanted the  Navy to excavate a higher percentage of detected metal pieces than the  Navy initially intended to excavate. After a lengthy process, the Navy and  federal regulators were able to reach consensus on the percentage of  metal pieces to excavate.
Obtaining entry rights from current owners of FUDS properties takes time  and can increase project duration. For example, a senior official from the  Corps told us that a landowner at the Campbell Island, North Carolina,  FUDS refused to grant the Corps access to the site because of  dissatisfaction with the government. The site inspection phase was  scheduled to start sometime after December 2008; however, as of  February 2010, the Corps had not yet initiated the site inspection because  the agency has not yet been able to obtain entry rights from the current  landowner. Corps officials plan to contact the landowner sometime in  2010 in an effort to resolve the issue.
Site-specific factors arise that can extend project duration in some cases.
For example, Air Force officials told us that strict requirements from the  New Hampshire State Historic Preservation Office delayed cleanup at New  Boston Air Force Base. It took the Air Force longer to complete the  investigative phases of the cleanup process because the Historic  Preservation Office required that all objects discovered on the site, that  were not unexploded ordnances or munitions constituents, be left in place  to allow an archeologist to photograph and log each item for the historical  record.
subsections: section_title: Incomplete Data Prevent an Assessment of the Accuracy of MMRP Cleanup Cost Estimates
paragraphs: We found that DOD lacks complete site-level data on obligated funds for  the three phases of the cleanup process we examined—preliminary  assessment, site inspection, and remedial investigation/feasibility study— for fiscal years 2001 through 2008. These are funds that DOD has legally  committed to pay for activities conducted during a particular phase of the  cleanup process. Assessing the extent to which DOD’s estimates of costs  for MMRP cleanup phases are accurate requires both data on the  estimated costs and funds obligated so they can be compared to determine  how closely the estimates match the obligations. Our analysis of the 2,611  munitions response sites where work was conducted during the  preliminary assessment phase in fiscal years 2001 through 2008 found that  the database did not contain obligated funds data for 2,272 (or 87 percent)  of the sites. According to a senior DOD official, the military services and  the Corps often are unable to report funds obligated for preliminary  assessments for individual sites because they sometimes conduct  preliminary assessments for all sites on an installation at the same time. In  these instances, obligated funds are reported for the entire installation as  opposed to on a site-by-site basis. Moreover, according to this official, the  preliminary assessment and site inspection phases are often conducted  concurrently and obligated funds for these two phases are consolidated in  the site inspection phase. However, our analysis of the 2,322 munitions  response sites where work was conducted during the site inspection phase  in fiscal years 2001 through 2008—including those sites that had a  combined preliminary assessment and site inspection phase—found that  the database did not have obligated funds data for 488 (or 21 percent) of  these sites. Finally, our analysis of the 283 sites where work was  conducted during the remedial investigation/feasibility study phase in  fiscal years 2001 through 2008 found the database did not have obligated  funds data for 116 (or 41 percent) of these sites. Figure 9 summarizes our  analysis of the percentage of sites in these three phases of the cleanup  process that did not have obligated funds data.
A senior DOD official told us that in fiscal year 2009, DOD implemented  additional, more rigorous quality assurance and control processes  designed to detect errors and inconsistencies in its MMRP cost estimates.  For example, the official said that one of the new data checks DOD began  performing in 2009 was to examine sites scheduled to begin a cleanup  phase in the future to ensure that the database also includes an estimate of  the cost to complete that phase. However, the official said DOD is not  currently evaluating whether the military services and the Corps are  reporting obligated funds data for project phases that have been  completed. DOD requires the military services and the Corps to gather  obligated funds data and, according to the DOD official, they should be  reporting these data to DOD for inclusion in the Knowledge-Based  Corporate Reporting System. In the absence of complete site-level  information on obligated funds, DOD or Congress may not be able to  determine the accuracy of the military services’ and the Corps’ reported  cost estimates for completing the various phases of the cleanup process.  Furthermore, DOD or Congress ultimately may not have sufficient  information to assess whether DOD’s estimates of its future cleanup  liabilities under the MMRP are reliable.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: Thousands of munitions response sites that potentially pose risks to  human health and the environment may need to be cleaned up before they  can be reused, often for nonmilitary purposes. While we recognize that  managing the MMRP is a large and complex task for DOD, the military  services, and the Corps, we believe that in several areas there are  opportunities for program management improvements. First, there is a  need for guidance on how to conduct site sequencing in a manner that is  consistent and transparent. While Congress mandated a consistent and  transparent approach to assessing relative risks to assign cleanup  priorities at sites, it did not provide for a process for assessing other  factors, such as stakeholder concerns and military mission needs, when  making site sequencing decisions; and DOD has not provided guidance to  the military services and the Corps on how to conduct such assessments.  Without DOD guidance on how to determine which sites to sequence first  for cleanup, we are concerned that the military services and the Corps  could use inconsistent processes for making these decisions. Second, we  remain concerned about the transparency of DOD’s response complete  information provided to Congress. DOD has categorized 1,234 sites as  response complete, but these sites did not require actual cleanup under  the MMRP, and we believe that this fact is not adequately explained in  DOD’s annual report to Congress. As a result, Congress and the public may  be misled about the extent to which actual cleanups have taken place  under the MMRP to date. Third, despite a legal requirement to do so, DOD  has not yet established the remedy in place or response complete goal for  FUDS nor determined and reported any interim goals it finds feasible for  the MMRP. Implementing these requirements would provide DOD,  Congress, and the public better information to track progress toward  cleaning up munitions response sites. Finally, the database that DOD uses  to help manage its MMRP does not contain complete site-level data on  obligated funds for the cleanup phases we examined. As a result, it is not  possible to assess the accuracy of the cost estimates for activities  conducted during these phases. As the MMRP matures and more sites  begin actual cleanups, program costs will continue to increase and it will  be critical for DOD to be able to determine whether its cost estimates for  phases of the cleanup process are accurate, so that Congress and the  public can have reasonable assurance that DOD’s estimates of its future  cleanup liabilities under the MMRP are likely to be reliable.
section_title: Matter for Congressional Consideration
paragraphs: To improve transparency for progress DOD has made in cleaning up  MMRP sites, Congress may wish to consider requiring that DOD report, in  a separate category from its accounting of “response complete” sites in the  Defense Environmental Programs Annual Report to Congress, any sites  that DOD determined did not require actual cleanup under the MMRP and  were administratively closed.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: To improve consistency, transparency, and management of the MMRP, we  recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following three actions:    develop guidance for the military services and the Corps that establishes a  consistent approach for how factors other than relative risk should be  considered in munitions response site sequencing decisions;   establish and report to Congress (1) a goal for achieving remedy in place  or response complete for FUDS, as required by law, and (2) such interim  goals as DOD determines feasible for the remedy in place or response  complete goals at munitions response sites on active and BRAC 2005  installations and FUDS; and   establish a process to ensure the completeness of site-level obligated  funds data in DOD’s Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System  database.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a copy of a draft of this report to the Department of Defense  for its review and comment. DOD partially agreed with two of our  recommendations and disagreed with one recommendation and the matter  for congressional consideration.
DOD said that it partially agreed with our first recommendation that the  Secretary of Defense develop guidance for the military services and the  Corps that establishes a consistent approach for how factors other than  relative risk should be considered in munitions response site sequencing  decisions. DOD said that it will collect and evaluate information and  lessons learned from the military services regarding their processes for  sequencing munitions response sites. If DOD determines that additional  guidance is necessary, DOD said it will develop specific sequencing  protocols and issue further guidance to ensure consistency across the  military services. However, DOD did not specify what additional  information it needs to collect from the military services and the Corps to  determine that they currently are taking different approaches to  sequencing their sites for cleanup. Nor did DOD explain in its comments  the need for providing the military services and the Corps the flexibility to  develop different approaches to sequencing munitions response sites.  Given that this flexibility could result in inconsistent processes for making  sequencing decisions, we continue to believe that DOD needs to provide  guidance to the military services and the Corps that establishes a  consistent approach to sequencing. This guidance will ensure that the  military services and the Corps not only use the Munitions Response Site  Prioritization Protocol to assign site priorities in a consistent and  transparent fashion, but also ensure that they consider the same range of  other factors, in addition to relative risk, in making their decisions and  assess the significance of those factors in a consistent way.
DOD also partially concurred with our second recommendation, that DOD  establish a goal of remedy in place or response complete for FUDS, as  required by law, and interim goals at munitions response sites on active  and BRAC 2005 installations and FUDS. DOD said that it did not concur  with what it understood to be a separate part of the recommendation—to  set a date for “completing cleanup” of FUDS. However, we did not intend  to convey a further requirement beyond the remedy in place or response  complete goal for FUDS, and we clarified the recommendation  accordingly. DOD said that it will establish a remedy in place or response  complete goal for munitions response sites at FUDS and will establish  additional short-term interim goals for active and BRAC 2005 installations  and FUDS once it has a better understanding of the nature and extent of  cleanup requirements at these sites. However, DOD has not committed to  a date by which it will establish these goals. We believe it is important for  DOD to set these goals as soon as possible because, until it does so,  Congress and the public will have less information with which to monitor  the progress of cleanups at munitions response sites.
DOD did not agree with our third recommendation to establish a process  to ensure the completeness of site-level obligated funds data in its  Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System database. DOD stated that  it has procedures in place to plan, program, budget, and execute funds for  cleanup actions at munitions response sites. DOD also said that it has  information on obligated funds but that it is not typically available at the  individual site level and is tracked outside of the Knowledge-Based  Corporate Reporting System database. Although we recognize that DOD  has these phase-level data in another database, we continue to believe that  without site-level obligations data, DOD does not have the ability to  compare the corresponding cost estimates to determine if they are  accurate. In the absence of such a comparison, DOD or Congress may not  be able to determine the accuracy of the military services’ and the Corps’  estimates of the costs to complete various phases of the cleanup process.
Finally, DOD did not agree with our matter for congressional  consideration that would require DOD to report in a separate category  from its “response complete” sites in the Defense Environmental  Programs Annual Report to Congress any sites that DOD determined did  not require actual cleanup under the MMRP and were administratively  closed. DOD said that it believes that all sites that complete the CERCLA  process should be considered equal accomplishments whether they  require a removal or remedial action or not. DOD also said that it believes  it is misleading to characterize a site that achieves closure without an  actual cleanup differently from one that has been cleaned up, and that this  undermines the significant work and progress DOD has made. We  recognize that DOD must conduct assessments and investigations to  determine that no physical cleanup actions will be needed and that this  process can require significant time and effort to complete. Nonetheless,  we believe it is misleading to group administratively closed and actually  cleaned up sites together because the actions DOD took to close those two  types of sites are significantly different. Also, we do not believe that listing  these sites in separate categories undermines the progress DOD has made.  Rather, doing so will improve transparency and more clearly indicate the  nature of the actions that DOD has taken to reach response complete for  its munitions response sites. Consequently, we continue to believe that  Congress may wish to consider requiring DOD to report sites that were  administratively closed in a separate category from those sites requiring  actual, physical cleanup.
DOD also provided technical comments in an enclosure to its letter, which  we have incorporated in this report as appropriate. DOD’s letter is  included in appendix II.
We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional  committees, the Secretary of Defense, and other interested parties. In  addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at  http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please contact  me at (202) 512-3841 or mittala@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of  Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page  of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are  listed in appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
paragraphs: The National D we assess the (1) Military Mu and funding levels; (2) progress the Department of Defense (DOD) has  made cleaning up munitions response sites; (3) extent to which DOD has  established performance goals for the MMRP; and (4) extent to which  DOD collects data on factors influencing project duration, as well as the  accuracy of its cleanup cost estimates.  efense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2009 mandates that  nitions Response Program’s (MMRP) staffing  In addressing these four objectives, we analyzed MMRP data for fiscal  years 2001 through 2008 in DOD’s environmental programs management  database—the Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System—and the  Defense Environmental Programs Annual Reports to Congress for fiscal  years 2002 through 2008. We assessed the reliability of the data for  relevant variables in the Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System by  electronically testing for obvious errors in accuracy and completeness. We  also reviewed information about data verification, reporting, and security,  and the systems that produced the data, and interviewed officials  knowledgeable about the data. When we found inconsistencies in the data,  we worked with the officials responsible for the data to clarify these  inconsistencies before conducting our analyses. We determined that the  data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of providing descriptive  information about the MMRP and for analyzing the duration of phases of  the MMRP cleanup process. However, we found MMRP obligated funds  data to be incomplete and therefore not suitable for analysis. We discuss  this data reliability issue in more detail later in this appendix. In addition,  we reviewed key laws, regulations, policies, and guidance from DOD, the  military services (Army, Air Force, and Navy), and the U.S. Army Corps of  Engineers (Corps). We visited one base realignment and closure (BRAC)  installation (Fort Ord), one active installation (Beale Air Force Base), and  one formerly used defense site (FUDS) (Camp Beale) to ensure we had the  opportunity to review MMRP operations at active and BRAC installations  and FUDS. We also interviewed headquarters and regional officials from  the Environmental Protection Agency to discuss the MMRP.
To assess the military services’ and the Corps’ MMRP staffing and funding  levels, we spoke with senior officials from the Office of the Deputy Under  Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment), the military  services, and the Corps who are knowledgeable about how MMRP staffing  and funding levels are determined. In addition, we reviewed the Defense  Environmental Programs Annual Reports to Congress for fiscal years  2002 through 2008 to determine funding obligated for the MMRP.  se  To assess the progress DOD has made in cleaning up munitions respon sites, we identified, as of the end of fiscal year 2008, how many sites DODhad administratively closed and how ma ny had been actually cleaned up.  We defined a site as administratively closed if after investigating, DOD  determined that it could safely close the site without taking remedial  action. Specifically, we analyzed data in the Knowledge-Based Corporate  Reporting System to identify sites that fit two criteria: (1) the “response  complete” date matched the end date for the three investigative phases  during which no remediation actions are taken (preliminary assessm site inspection, and remedial investigation) and (2) no costs were reported  in the remedial action construction or the remedial action operations  phase. Senior officials from DOD, the military services, and the Corps  agreed that these criteria would identify sites that had been closed actual cleanup, which we have defined as being administratively closed.  These criteria allowed us to identify 712 of the 1,318 sites DOD report having achieved response complete. However, we were unable to  determine if any of the remaining 606 sites had been administratively  closed because sites may have been administratively closed without the  response complete date matching the end date of one of the investigative phases. Therefore, we asked the military services and the Corps to identify which sites they had administratively closed. The Air Force and the Navy  were able to provide the information for their relatively small number of  sites, but senior Army and Corps officials said they did not keep such  information in a centralized database and it would take them too much  time to gather it for their many sites. Instead, they provided us with the  number of sites they had actually cleaned up and indicated that we could  assume the remaining sites had been administratively closed. In addition,  we assessed the progress the military services and the Corps have made i applying the Munitions Response Site Prioritization Protocol  to generate  relative priority scores for their sites by reviewing prioritization protocol  data in the Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System. We considered  a site to be scored if it was listed in the Knowledge-Based Corporate  Reporting System as having a numerical relative priority score of on e  through eight or if it had been given the alternative designation of “no  known or suspected hazard” as of the end of fiscal year 2008. We  considered sites to not be scored if they had a designation of “evaluation  pending” because this designation indicates that the military services or  the Corps need more information to assign the site a relative priority  score. We excluded from our analysis the 1,341 sites for which the military services and the Corps indicated that scoring was no longer required  because DOD reported that most of these sites had already reached  response complete.
To assess the extent to which DOD has established performance goals fo the MMRP, we reviewed the fiscal year 2007 National Defense  Authorization Act, the Military Munitions Response Program  Comprehensive Plan, and the fiscal year 2008 Defense Environmental  Programs Annual Report to Congress. We also spoke with a senior off responsible for the MMRP from the Office of the Deputy Under Secreta of Defense (Installations and Environment) to determine the progress  DOD has made in establishing performance goals.
To assess the extent to which DOD collects data on factors influen project duration, we reviewed and analyzed data from the Knowledge- Based Corporate Reporting System to determine the average length of  time munitions response sites have been in the cleanup process. To  determine project duration, we attempted to identify start and end dates  for phases of the cleanup process for all 3,674 sites in the Knowledge- Based Corporate Reporting System. We measured project duration as the length of time between the earliest phase start date and the latest phas end date, calculated using both month and year information. Using this method, we were able to calculate project duration for 3,112 sites. We  were unable to calculate project duration for 47 sites because they had no phase dates in the Knowledge-Based Corporate Reporting System. We did  not calculate project duration for the remaining 515 sites because they had  phase start and end dates prior to fiscal year 2001 (when the MMRP was  established) and were therefore outside the scope of this review. Next, weanalyzed site size and type to assess their relationship to project duration.  To analyze site size, we divided the list of sites into three similarly sized  categories: (1) small (less than 23 acres); (2) medium (between 23 and  649  acres); (3) large (650 acres or larger). We also created a fourth categor for sites reported as zero acres or those with missing size data. On assigned sites to a category, we were able to combine this analysis with  our analysis on project duration to calculate the mean and median projec duration for small, medium, and large sites. We reported the mean pro duration in the report, and there was no substantive difference between  the mean and median. We used the site-type data in the Knowledge-Ba Corporate Reporting System to determine the relationship between  project duration and to categories that included at least 5 percent of the total number of sites  and then combined the remaining categories into an “other” category. This  allowed us to analyze project duration for six site-type categori nges,   (1) unexploded munitions and ordnance areas, (2) small arms ra (3) firing ranges, (4) explosive ordnance disposal areas, (5) other, and   (6) unknown (i.e., information on site type was not available). Once we  had determined these categories, we combined this analysis with our  project duration analysis to calculate the mean and median project  duration for each site type. We reported the mean p report, and there was no substantive difference between the mean and  median. We also interviewed senior officials from the military services a the Corps to obtain their views on factors influencing project duration.  type of hazard. We limited our analysis of site types  To assess the accuracy of DOD’s cleanup cost estimates, we assessed reliability of data on obligated funds in the Knowledge-Based Corporate  Reporting System for fiscal years 2001 through 2008. We analyzed the d to determine the extent to which sites with reported activities in three  phases of the cleanup process also included data on funds obligated for  those activities. We restricted our analysis to the first three phases of the l  cleanup process—preliminary assessment, site inspection, and remedia investigation/feasibility study—because most munitions response sites are  in one of these phases. To determine if we had a sufficient number of sites  to conduct our analysis, we calculated the number of sites in each of the  t  three phases that had obligated funds data. We found that over 10 percen of sites for all three phases were missing obligated funds data. Therefore,  we concluded that the data were not sufficiently reliable to allow us to  compare obligated funds to cost estimates for the sites in all three phases  to determine the accuracy of the estimates.
We conducted this performance audit from January 2009 to April 2010 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those  standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficien appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and  ce  conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the eviden t,  obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions  based on our audit objectives.
section_title: Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the individual named above, Stephen D. Secrist, Assistant  Director; Leo G. Acosta; Elizabeth Beardsley; Mark Braza; Nancy Crothers;  Pamela Davidson; Janida Grima; Amanda Leissoo; Laina Poon; and Kim  Raheb made significant contributions to this report.