|
|
|
Installation Restoration Program
The Installation Restoration (IR) Program is a Department of Defense (DoD) initiative that identifies, investigates, and cleans up former waste disposal sites. A variety of waste—such as solvents, waste oil, scrap metal and lumber—are generated at military installations. Past disposal practices for these wastes, although acceptable at the time, did not meet today’s stricter environmental laws. In 1980, the DOD changed the way it does business. Since then, DoD has been a recognized leader in environmental compliance.
In 1975, DoD began a pilot program to investigate past hazardous waste disposal on military property. This pilot program evolved into the current Environmental Restoration Program, which includes both the Installation Restoration Program and the Munitions Response Program. Depending upon the circumstances, military environmental restoration sites are identified, investigated, and cleaned up in accordance with RCRA or CERCLA, or an integrated approach based on both laws.
Currently, all of the environmental restoration sites on Vieques are being investigated and cleaned up under the CERCLA process. Sites with Munitions and Explosives of Concern (MEC) are being investigated and cleaned up under the Munitions Response Program.
The goal of the DoD Installation Restoration Program is to reduce, in a cost-effective manner, the risk to human health and the environment of hazardous substance contamination from past DoD activities in the U.S. and its territories. Risk management is the primary philosophy in programming, budgeting, and executing the program.
* Click on a link to the left to
learn more about the regulatory and administrative programs that
drive environmental cleanup at current and former Department of
Defense facilities.
Risk-Based Prioritization
In accordance with DoD policy, the Department of the Navy programs, budgets, and executes the environmental restoration program with the tools of risk management. Relative risk, as described in the DoD Relative Risk Primer, is an important factor in risk management and DoD standards are followed for evaluating and assigning relative risk. The relative risk site evaluation framework is a methodology used across all of DoD, to evaluate the relative risk posed by a site, in relation to other sites, and to group sites into high, medium, and low risk categories based on evaluation of site information.
|