Congressional Testimony on Lessons Learned in FUDS MMRP

Washington, D.C. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released testimony that was presented to the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives covering "Lessons Learned from the Cleanup of FUDS and Military Munitions Sites". While the testimony focused on the Spring Valley site as the primary example, the lessons learned summarized and presented were applicable to the FUDS munitions program as a whole. The lessons learned were broken down into four themes including:

• Impacts that shortcomings in available information and guidance can have on decision-making.

• Impacts that incomplete data on site conditions and emerging contaminants can have on the development of cost estimates and schedules.

• How funding may be influenced or impacted by overall program goals and other priorities.

• How better coordination is needed among regulators and property owners to increase public confidence in the program.

The testimony itself did not provide any new significant findings or lessons learned from today but rather referenced and summarized previous studies and program evaluations conducted by the GAO over the previous years including the GAO's assessment of the cleanup of Spring Valley in 2002, the assessment of the FUDS program in 2003, and the assessment of DoD's munitions response program in 2004.

The overall conclusion of the testimony was that DoD should use all of the data available in the development of plans and estimates and that regulators and property owners should be integrally involved in the process.

To view the entire testimony from UXOInfo.com, use the download link below.