Federal Facilities

Environmentalists are seeking to block military efforts to dispose of material containing perfluorinated compounds before EPA advances a plan to regulate the compounds under Superfund law, calling for a halt in the incineration of firefighting foam containing the chemicals and successfully objecting to disposal of contaminated soil in a New Jersey landfill.

The Energy Department's (DOE) liability for cleaning up the remaining 16 contaminated sites in its nuclear weapons complex jumped $109 billion over the past year, to $377 billion, largely due to updated estimates for addressing high-level radioactive waste at the Hanford reservation in Richland, WA, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a just-released report.

The California water board is delaying a vote scheduled for next month to approve a controversial new "wetlands" definition and new rules for discharging dredge and fill materials to state "waters" after agreeing with key stakeholder groups that many of the provisions are "confusing" and need additional clarity or even some changes in policy direction.

The Air Force is suing New Mexico’s environmental regulators over its recently renewed 10-year Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) permit for Cannon Air Force Base, a case that appears to mark one of the first formal disputes between a state and the military over efforts to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).