Sen. David Vitter and U.S. Rep. John Fleming are indignant about what Fleming calls extortion by the Environmental Protection Agency in connection with the cleanup of 7,800 tons of potentially explosive materials at Camp Minden.
As The Associated Press reports, Louisiana has paid the EPA $1.2 million to oversee the cleanup. But the agency is now asking for an estimated $8 million more, Fleming says. Vitter, meanwhile, says the amount is unknown.
Both say the EPA is delaying a contract and endangering people.
“It is extortion from an agency whose budget this year is $8.1 billion,” Fleming says.
The EPA is trying to provide the review, monitoring and information that it has been asked for, spokesman David Gray says.
“EPA has been working with the state and community to dispose of the materials at Camp Minden,” he writes in an email to The AP. “Throughout this effort, everyone asked that EPA provide independent review and monitoring of the disposal and ensure information is provided to the public. Our goal has been to provide that service which we believe is necessary to verify operations are protective.”
State police found 7,800 tons of M6 artillery propellant and 160 tons of clean-burning igniters—much of it in the open or otherwise improperly stored—after an explosion in 2012. It’s been stored more safely. But the Army says the older it gets, the greater the danger of spontaneous explosion.
The EPA initially said that burning the material in shallow trays was the only way to get rid of it quickly enough. But community outrage prompted a decision that other methods could be considered, and on May 8 the agency approved a plan for Explosive Service International of Baton Rouge to incinerate the material.
