CHAPTER 12

This chapter contains particular policies and procedures necessary to provide protection to personnel as a result of DoD ammunition, explosives, or chemical agents contamination of real property currently and formerly owned, leased or used by the Department of Defense. This includes manufacturing areas, including pads, pits, basins, ponds, streams, burial sites; and other locations incident to such operations. The identification and control measures are in addition to, not substitutes for, those generally applicable to DoD real-property management. Contamination as used in this chapter refers in all cases to contamination with ammunition, explosives, or chemical agents.

1. All means practicable shall be used to protect members of the general public from exposure to hazards from contaminated real property currently or formerly under DoD ownership or control.

2. Permanent contamination of real property by final disposal of ammunition and explosives or chemical agents is prohibited. This prohibition extends to disposal by land burial; by discharge onto watersheds or into sewers, streams, lakes, or waterways. This policy does not preclude burial to control fragments during authorized destruction by detonation when these procedures are authorized by the DoD Component concerned and compliance with applicable statutes and regulations relative to environmental safeguards is ensured.

3. Real property that is known to be contaminated with ammunition, explosives, or chemical agents must be decontaminated using the most appropriate technology to the extent necessary to ensure protection of the public consistent with the proposed end use of the property.

a. Permanent records shall be created and maintained for each installation, ammunition plant, depot, laboratory, range, and ammunition holding areas to identify clearly all contaminated areas. These records shall indicate known and suspect areas, positively identify contamination by nomenclature, hazard, quantity, exact locations, and dud rates. All decontamination efforts shall be similarly detailed. If the installation is deactivated, the decontamination records shall be transferred to the office designated by the DoD Component concerned to ensure permanent retention.

b. All contaminated locations shall be placarded appropriately with permanent signs that prohibit entrance of unauthorized personnel. The DoD Component concerned shall ensure periodically that such signs are restored and maintained in a legible condition.

c. Active firing ranges, demolition grounds, and explosives test areas shall be assumed to be contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO) explosive material and shall be controlled accordingly. Access to these areas shall be controlled by the DoD Component.

a. The plans for leasing, transferring, excessing, disposing, and/or remediating DoD real property when ammunition, explosives, or chemical agents contamination exists or is suspected to exist, shall be submitted to DDESB for review and approval of the explosives safety aspects of the plan.

b. DoD Component land disposal submissions shall identify the intended end use of the property, the nature and extent of on- and off-post contamination, location of the contaminated land, any improvements that may have been made, proposed detection and degree of decontamination, and the extent to which the property may be used safely without further decontamination.

c. When accountability and control of real property contaminated with ammunition and explosives are transferred between DoD Components, the action shall be accompanied by the permanent record of contamination.

d. Ammunition, explosives, or chemical agents shall be removed until an acceptable level of protection is reached. Identification of degree and extent of contamination, an assessment of the potential for migration of contamination, and implementation of steps to halt such migration are necessary to accomplish proper cleanup. In addition, ammunition and explosives contamination shall be removed to appropriate depths in limited areas where the user activity warrants it. Transfer records shall detail past ammunition and explosive contamination and decontamination efforts; provide requisite residual contamination information; and advise the user not to excavate or drill in residual contamination areas without a metal detection survey. This information shall be enclosed along with the report of excess. This information will also be entered in the permanent land records of the civil jurisdiction in which the property is located.

e. Limited use land transfers may be arranged with other federal agencies for compatible use of contaminated real property, such as wildlife refuges, safety zones for federal power facilities, or other purposes not requiring entry except for personnel authorized by the DoD Component concerned. These land transfers shall include all restrictions and prohibitions concerning use of the real property to ensure appropriate protection of both operating personnel and the general public.

a. The DoD Component responsible for the remediation of the FUDS shall develop procedures to safely remediate those sites contaminated with ammunition, explosives, or chemical agents. These procedures will be provided to DDESB for review and approval. Priority will be given to the remediation of sites with contamination that poses an immediate public risk. Identification of the degree and extent of contamination, assessment of potential for migration of contamination, and implementation of steps to halt such migration will complement efforts to clean up FUDS.

b. Plans for the remediation of FUDS must be submitted to the DDESB for coordination (with regard to explosives and chemical agent safety). These plans should present the type of contaminations that are suspected to exist at the site; the techniques that will be used for the identification of the contamination; a risk assessment; and the measures that will be taken to minimize the risk to workers and the public during the contamination assessment, cleanup; and disposal phases. The DDESB will be notified if significant hazards arise during any of the above phases and require actions beyond the DDESB-approved FUDS procedures or actions beyond the specific FUDS remediation plan initially submitted for coordination to the DDESB.

a. Remediation planning. The depth to which UXO remediation is necessary depends on the projected end-use of the land and the extent of potential human exposure.

(1) Information concerning the remediation and notification that additional cleanup is necessary before further and/or different use permitted will be included in applicable land disposal documents.

(2) The intended end use may be defined in law or by the end user which can be any combination of federal, state, local and private entities.

(3) The land's projected end use must be changed in those cases where UXO detection systems are not sensitive enough or funds are not available to remove UXO to the remediation depth.

(4) Documents about the remediation depth to which UXO was removed and the process by which that depth was determined must be included in the land disposal documents.

b. Remediation process. Remediation involves removing UXO from the specific parcel of land being transferred. This process includes several steps:

(1) Determine the land end-use. The end-use may be defined in federal law, stipulated by agreement or determined pursuant to a process established by state law and applied nondiscriminatory. Within a parcel of land, there may be multiple uses, such as wildlife refuge, livestock grazing, public highways and picnic area.

(5) Remove or neutralize UXO. Where removal or neutralization of UXO to the defined remediation depth is not technologically feasible the remediation may not be adequate to permit the projected end use.

(7) Make provisions for continued DoD surveillance of areas where UXO is above the frost line yet located below the remediation depth. (The Corps of Engineers is responsible for actions involving land returned to the public domain.) Such UXO could eventually migrate to the surface, requiring additional remediation.

c. Site-specific remediation depth determination. The preferred method to determine the remediation depths is to use site-specific information. The following information is needed for a site-specific determination:

(1) Characterize the site, including the boundaries, types of ordnance, and soil characteristics. This is done through searching historical documents, interview, and on-site investigation, as appropriate.

(2) Provide the estimated depth at which UXO may be present based on available records, technical data, and/or on-site investigation, as appropriate. This may be accomplished using a MAXIMUM ORDNANCE PENETRATION source document, such as the NOMOGRAPH found in Figure 4-8, TM 5-855-l (reference (z)).

(3) Determine the risk associated with the end-use of the site assuming differing depths of remediation, in light of the ordnance types likely to be present and the said documentation.

(4) Using UXO depth estimate(s), establish remediation depths for the site-specific conditions.

d. The approved remediation plan may be modified based on actual conditions encountered during the remediation. For example, should UXO be consistently found at less than the predicted depths, the remediation depth may be reduced. The modification(s) will be documented, forwarded to DDESB for approval, and included in the land disposal documents.

e. Assessment depth. When site specific planning described in paragraph C.4.c., above, is not possible, the assessment depths provided below are used for interim planning.

Planned End Use	Depth
Unrestricted
Commercial/Residential/ Utility/Subsurface Recreational
Construction Activity	10 Ft *
Public Access
Farming/Agriculture/Surface	4 Ft
Recreation/Vehicle Parking/Surface
Supply Storage
Limited Public Access
Livestock Grazing/Wildlife Preserve	1 Ft
Not Yet Determined	Surface
Like Use
(Remediation will be consistent with Service regulations concerning routine maintenance of impact areas).

* (Assessment planning at construction sites for any projected end use requires looking at the possibility of UXO presence 4 ft below planned excavation depths).

f. Land disposal documents must include notice that there would be increased risks to operations and public safety if violations of the end use were to occur.

a. Mineral exploration and drilling activities are to be separated from ammunition and explosives operating and storage facilities by public traffic route explosives safety distances provided there is to be no occupancy of the site by personnel when the exploration or drilling is completed, and by inhabited building explosives safety distances if occupancy is to continue when exploration or drilling is completed. If chemical agents or munitions are present, public exclusion distances must be maintained to the exploration or drilling activities. Examples of exploration activities are seismic or other geophysical tests. Examples of drilling activities are those for exploration or extraction of oil, gas, and geothermal energy.

b. Mining activities are to be separated from ammunition and explosives operating and storage facilities by inhabited building explosives safety distances. If chemical agents or munitions are present, public exclusion distances must be maintained to the mining activities. Examples of mining activities are strip, shaft, open pit, and placer mining, which normally require the presence of operating personnel.

2. Contaminated lands. Exploration, drilling, and mining are prohibited on the surface of explosives or chemical agent contaminated lands. Exploration and extraction is permitted by directional (slant) drilling at a depth greater than 50 feet beneath the explosives contaminated land surface or by shaft mining at a depth greater than 100 feet beneath such land surface.

3. Safety review of exploration and extraction plans. Military Department approved plans for mineral exploration and extraction on land that is in proximity to ammunition and explosives facilities or land that is contaminated or suspected to be contaminated with explosives shall be forwarded to the DDESB for safety review and approval. Submission will include information necessary for explosives safety evaluation consistent with subsection C.2., above. Relationships with other PES should be included.