Military readiness vs. the environment
Should the military be required to act in accord with environmental laws?
An interesting article, especially since the company I work for (and the office I’m in) does quite a bit of work with the DoD and DoE in cleaning up military bases and energy research sites, some of which are mentioned (Hanford, MMR), some of which aren’t.
My two cents:
The military (and Energy Dept.) are required to clean up any sites that they close before turning them over to the public. This has delayed the pay-off from base closures all across the nation, since these places are incredibly dirty. The stories I could tell you. Sheesh.
Certainly there are things that the military should do to ameliorate polution that they produce, short-term and long-term. Dirtying the water table. Take steps to fix it. Releasing toxic gasses? Stop it, now. These are things that can be done that have immediate short-term benefits and very few impacts on military training and preparedness.
On the other hand, the nature of military needs requires some adjustments. Areas that are designated as military reservations should be exempt from the Endangered Species Act. That just puts too high of a crimp into one national priority for the sake of another. And there are long-term pollutants (unexploded ordinance comes to mind) that, practically speaking, cannot be cleaned up until base closure.
It’s a tangled web, that’s for sure. The only thing I’m sure of is that we can’t let either side of the equation get carte blanche. Both the military and the environment are too important to sacrifice one on the altar of the other.