Federal Facilities Environmental Journal最新文献

In this exclusive interview with the Journal, Rear Admiral Granuzzo discusses a number of recent environmental controversies involving the Navy and his priorities for addressing current and emerging environmental challenges.

The management of contaminated structures can be a major activity at some federal facilities and generally differs from management of contaminated environmental media. In particular, a major issue associated with a contaminated structure is whether there is a realistic potential for future use of the structure. This issue should be addressed early in a planning process. The resolution of this issue significantly affects other major issues associated with management of a contaminated structure such as: (1) What are the expected costs associated with management of the structure? (2) What regulatory requirements are applicable? (3) What characterization is needed? (4) What risk assessment is necessary? and (5) What remediation decisions must be made? This article considers all of these issues.

Overall, the detonation of munitions represents an environmentally clean reaction. Six kilotons of energetic materials were expended in this case study during training in 1996. These included nitrocellulose (55 percent), trinitrotoluene (TNT) (30 percent), nitroglycerine (5 percent), nitroguanidine (4 percent), dinitrotoluene (DNT) (3 percent), and Royal Dutch Explosive (RDX) (3 percent). Based on previously reported test data (BangBox), energetic detonation emissions of environmental concern were calculated to be less than 1 percent. This residue contains nitrogen oxides (88 percent), a mix of volatile organic compounds (11 percent), and possibly undetonated RDX (<1 percent). Preliminary assessment of emissions produced by munitions in this study indicates that both nitrogen oxide (NOX) and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions are low relative to other NOX and VOC producing activities including emissions from biogenic (natural) sources. Though the amount of undetonated RDX is low, further work is needed to validate this number and determine whether this source represents any significant health or environmental impact.

A risk-based approach to environmental metrics is proposed for use by federal facilities that incorporates not only the mass of chemicals involved, but also the characteristics of the chemicals, when evaluating process changes or comparing pollution prevention alternatives. A risk-based approach developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the WAR (Waste Reduction) Algorithm can be used to generate a risk-based metric for federal facilities. The WAR Algorithm can establish a relative potential risk baseline for a given industrial process or processes, and can serve as a useful tool to either forecast the reduction of potential risks for pollution prevention (P2) options or document the risk reduction achieved through alternatives already implemented in a P2 program.

The Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River is proactively establishing an environmental quality assessment program (EQAP) for environmental excellence in accordance with emerging Navy policy to implement such a program. The EQAP will replace the Navy's Environmental Compliance Evaluation (ECE) program. Under the ECE program, shore-based Naval installations were required to annually perform a self-ECE of their compliance status. Under the new program, Naval installations will be required to develop and execute an internal assessment plan that addresses environmental quality within the “fenceline.” The assessment will address all applicable compliance requirements on a schedule based on the environmental concerns, vulnerabilities, and risks and may also cover program management processes, the environmental management system (EMS), and measures of merit. Implementation of the EQAP is especially critical at the NAS due to the tremendous growth that it has experienced as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC). Presented in this article is a description of the NAS's EQAP and how it evolved from the predecessor ECE program.

RACER is the only commercially available, integrated cost estimating software for estimating the costs of environmental remediation projects from studies through system operations and maintenance (O&M). RACER provides the detail and accuracy of manual estimates, but is faster, less error prone, and more efficient in comparing alternatives. RACER has been used in estimating over $10 billion of remediation projects. Its accuracy has proven to be within 10 percent of actual completed project costs. The system currently has over 1,000 users. The software was developed in 1991 and is updated and validated annually. It is endorsed by EPA, DOE, DOD, and many state agencies as a preferred estimating and negotiating tool.

The term “environmental justice” is becoming more recognizable in a regulatory context, and elicits occasional responses such as, “Ah yes, environmental justice, I need to consider that in my facility's community involvement plans, don't I? What is it again?” Facility and project managers know it is important, but they do not know exactly what it is. Is it a law? What constitutes an environmental justice area? And the questions go on and on. This article attempts to answer the basic questions surrounding the environmental justice initiative and gives some guidelines for incorporating environmental justice strategies into your community outreach activities.