Department of the Army Historical Summary: FY 1980

12.

Special Functions

Special functions include those activities which deeply involve the Army in the life of the civilian community. The civil works program of the Corps of Engineers dates from the 1780s. From then until well into the nineteenth century the Corps enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the engineering talent of the nation. The diffusion of scientific and professional education slowly broke down this condition, but the tradition of excellence established early in the work of the Corps sufficed to convince the national government to leave this mission with the Army. Two other special functions, environmental protection and energy, are of much more recent origin. The Army’s environmental protection and preservation programs are designed to bring Army practices into conformity with federal laws and regulations in an area of increasing concern to the nation. The energy program involves the Army in a coordinated government-wide effort to develop alternative energy sources and to conserve energy. The dominance of mechanization in modern military operations means that the energy program has a direct impact upon the Army’s ability to fight and win any future land battle, making the program central to the Army as an institution as well as American society generally. The Army’s actions in all three areas have become controversial as public concern has increased in recent years. The consequence has been litigation involving the Army. Finally, in compliance with national policy the Army seeks to utilize small and disadvantaged businesses when it awards contracts.

Five major wars in this century have demonstrated that the civil works program plays an extremely important role in mobilization. In each instance the Corps quickly converted from civil projects to constructing camps and training areas required by the units and men called to duty. The civil works program thus allows the maintenance of a sizable military construction potential within the Army during peacetime and provides individual engineers an opportunity to practice the skills they will need in war.

Fiscal year 1980 funds appropriated for the civil works program of the Corps of Engineers totaled $3,263,226,000, an increase of $472,926,000 over the fiscal year 1979 appropriation. The majority of

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this increase came in a 1980 supplemental appropriation of $460,600,000. Relief of the emergency created by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State accounted for forty-seven percent of the supplemental appropriation, $170 million in Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies and $45 million in Operations and Maintenance, General. The table below provides a breakdown of the fiscal year 1980 civil works appropriations by title (the amounts include funds appropriated by the Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act, 1980, Public Law (PL) 96-69, and the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1980, PL 96-304).

The largest appropriation, Construction, General, permitted work on 225 projects of which fifteen were completed during fiscal year 1980. The completed projects will provide flood protection to 547,376 acres of flood-prone lands and store 253,860 acre-feet (the volume of liquid which would cover one acre to the depth of one foot) of water for water supply. They also include improvements to two coastal harbors and fourteen miles of inland waterways, seven miles of beach erosion control, and power-on-line from one generating hydropower unit with an installed capacity of 26,667 kilowatts.

The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, currently under construction by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is probably the most important new navigation project in the United States since the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is 232 miles long, extending from Demopolis, Alabama, on the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River navigation system through a divide cut (a canal connecting one large drainage basin with another) into Pickwick Pool on the Tennessee River.

The Corps began construction of the project during 1971. At the beginning of fiscal year 1980, $622 million had been appropriated and allocated for construction. The 1980 budget request was $165 million.

The project generated intense controversy as reflected in court litigation (see Army Litigation) and challenges in Congress. A fiscal

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year 1980 supplemental request of $58 million to speed construction of the waterway precipitated an extensive debate on the floor of the House before the amount was approved by a vote of 230 to 185. In the Senate, the Appropriations, the Environment, and the Public Works Committees held special hearings on the Tennessee-Tombigbee project. The Senate debated a motion to reduce 1981 funds from $208 million to $8 million. The motion was defeated fifty-two to thirty-seven. As the fiscal year ended, the Corps estimated that completion of the project would require an additional $880 million.

Two major disasters, Hurricane Frederick and the eruption of Mount St. Helens, accounted for most of the Corps’ natural disaster activities in the fiscal year just ended.

Hurricane Frederick came ashore near Mobile, Alabama, on 12 September 1979. The storm involved 100 mile per hour winds, a ten-foot surge in ocean level, and seven inches of rain in three hours at Mobile. Damages totaling more than $600 million occurred in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, which President Carter declared major disaster areas.

Disaster relief activities, begun in fiscal year 1979, continued into June 1980. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mission assignments, under PL 93-288 authority, included damage surveys in all three states, delivery of block ice in Alabama, debris removal from the Mobile drainage system, removal of sunken barges in Mobile harbor, and temporary housing in Mississippi. The Corps’ response to FEMA requests required more than two hundred man-years of effort. At the peak, the effort required 450 persons, including personnel loaned by two divisions and eighteen districts. The Corps administered $100 million in contracts, including one for the removal of ten million cubic yards of debris.

On 18 May 1980 Mount St. Helens, a volcano in southwestern Washington State, erupted. The blast was greater than a twenty-five megaton bomb, removed 1,300 feet of mountain top, and scattered four billion cubic yards of material across the landscape and into the atmosphere. Mud flows clogged the Toutle, Cowlitz, and Columbia River channels. Deep-draft navigation to Portland was cut off, and the Toutle and Cowlitz Rivers could not handle normal winter rainy season flows. Loss of vegetation and soil over a 150 square mile area increased runoff, aggravating the potential for flooding. The President declared the state of Washington a disaster area on 22 May.

The Corps began work to restore the Columbia River navigation channel with Operations and Maintenance funds and to restore flood flow capacity on the Toutle and Cowlitz Rivers using PL 84-99 disaster funds. By 30 September, the Corps had dredged ten million cubic yards of material from the Columbia River at a cost of $15

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million. Flood flow activities on the Toutle and Cowlitz Rivers included dredging a new river channel, building or raising levees, and constructing debris retention structures.

By the end of the fiscal year, the Corps had obligated $97 million for flood prevention with $51 million expended. An additional $130 million had been authorized for work in the next year. The Corps has used more than twenty dredges plus land-based earthmoving equipment. It has also prepared Damage Survey Reports for FEMA.

The Corps of Engineers continuously evaluates all major civil works structures which it operates, including flood control dams, navigation locks and dams, and multipurpose dams, to ensure their structural safety and stability. Such evaluations are based upon periodic inspections, supported when appropriate by use of instruments to measure the effects of seepage, movement of the structure, and earthquakes. Following the initial inspection of new dams, they are examined at one-year intervals for four years and two-year intervals for another four years. Depending on the results, the inspections may be extended to intervals of five years. The District Engineer prepares a formal technical report on the inspection and submits it to the Division Engineer for review and approval. The District Engineer schedules remedial work when deficiencies are found and corrective measures are needed.

The Corps operates 248 flood control dams and reservoir projects, 220 major lock sites, and 69 hydroelectric power dams (multipurpose). Most of the other dams are used for flood control. The Dam Inspection Program seeks to ensure the integrity of Corps projects and thereby protect the people and property located downstream.

Congress enacted the National Dam Inspection Act of 1972 (PL 92-367) as a result of several dam failures in the United States. Limited funding and the Administration’s position that the safety of nonfederal dams is the responsibility of states and dam owners restricted the Corps of Engineers to compiling a national inventory of about 63,500 dams; conducting a review of each state and federal agency’s capabilities, practices, and regulations regarding the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of dams; developing the “Recommended Guidelines for the Safety Inspection of Dams”; and formulating recommendations for a comprehensive national dam safety program for nonfederal dams. The Chief of Engineers reported to Congress on these activities, including recommendations and proposed legislation to implement a federal dam safety program, in November 1976. A series of spectacular dam failures, including the Bureau of Reclamation’s Teton Dam in Idaho on 5 June 1976 and the privately-owned Kelly Barnes Dam in Georgia on 6 November 1977,

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led Congress to appropriate funds in the Public Works Appropriation Act for fiscal year 1978 to begin the inspection of nonfederal dams as required by PL 92-367.

On 2 December 1977 the Corps initiated a program to inspect approximately 9,000 nonfederal dams which by virtue of their location presented a high potential for loss of life and property should they fail. The program seeks to identify deficiencies in order to permit correction in a timely manner by nonfederal interests, to verify and update the existing inventory of dams, to provide data for a better definition of a viable national dam safety program including the federal role, and to encourage and prepare the states to implement effective dam safety programs for nonfederal dams.

The Corps began the inspections three years ago; it will require one more year to complete them. It selects and schedules the dam inspection in cooperation with the governor and state officials. The Corps had initiated 6,854 inspections, completed 6,632, and approved and furnished to governors and dam owners 5,894 inspection reports by 30 September 1980. During fiscal year 1981, it anticipates inspecting the approximately 2,100 remaining dams.

Of the 6,632 inspected dams, 1,937 had deficiencies which made them unsafe. The Corps recommended emergency action for ninety-seven of the unsafe dams to eliminate the potential for immediate failure. Emergency actions included draining or partial draining of the reservoir and breaching. In some cases the owners made the repairs almost immediately; however, their overall response in correcting deficiencies needs to be improved.

PL 92-367 specifically directed the Corps of Engineers to compile an inventory of all dams in the United States over six feet in height and with a maximum water impounding capability of at least fifty acre-feet or of at least twenty-five feet in height and with a maximum water capacity in excess of fifteen acre-feet. Compilation of the dam inventory involved collecting such information as the exact longitude and latitude of the dam site, the popular name of the impoundment, the nearest downstream center of habitation, the distance from the dam, its population, the type of dam, the year completed, its structural height, its maximum and normal impounding capacities, etc. In 1978 the Corps estimated that an update and expansion of the inventory begun in the early seventies would involve 55,000 dams. Use of a variety of sophisticated techniques to locate dams including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Land Satellite (LANDSAT) Multiple Scanner led to the identification of 63,578 dams meeting the criteria for inclusion in the inventory of which the Corps had inventoried 62,846 by 30 September 1980. The Corps

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hopes to obtain the legislative authority to maintain the inventory after fiscal year 1981.

During fiscal year 1980, the Corps conducted two one-week sessions of a dam safety training course for state personnel to promote the development of effective safety programs for nonfederal dams at the state level. The course offered instruction in basic engineering principles and practices involved in inspecting existing dams and assessing their safety. A total of fifty-five state representatives attended.

As part of a series of management initiatives to improve performance and support changing priorities and work loads, the Chief of Engineers in December 1978 directed the Corps’ field structure to undertake a realignment study to determine where to best locate Corps resources to meet the water resource challenges of the eighties. The study showed that the Corps’ field organization was basically sound, manning levels were lean, and that relatively few economies could be gained through major realignments without considerable disruption to missions.

The study considered for possible closure or realignment the engineer district offices at Buffalo, New York; Charleston, South Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Rock Island, Illinois; San Francisco, California; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Wilmington, North Carolina. The study reviewed and confirmed the status of the New England Division as a division. The St. Louis, Missouri, District will also remain a subordinate element of the Lower Mississippi Valley Division for the near future. San Francisco District will remain essentially unchanged with retention dependent on the size of the future construction work load.

While the study recommended no major realignments or closures, it did lead to some boundary adjustments and functional transfers. These changes included: Adjustment of the Chicago District’s areas of responsibility; assumption by the Detroit District of responsibility for Corps programs and projects in those parts of Wisconsin and most of Indiana currently assigned to the Chicago District, while the Rock Island District took over responsibility for the Chicago District’s part of the Illinois Waterway; continuation of the Chicago District’s support of the Chicago area and the northeastern six counties of Illinois and Lake and Porter counties in Indiana. The Corps also transferred the lake-oriented work of the St. Paul District, including the Lake Superior Area Office in Duluth, Minnesota, to the Detroit District; adjusted the boundary between the Charleston and Wilmington districts to follow the North Carolina and South Carolina state line; adjusted the boundary for regulatory activities between Charleston

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and Savannah districts to follow the Georgia and South Carolina state line (this realignment negated the need for any further study of the Charleston District for the foreseeable future); and transferred Philadelphia District’s construction and related design functions to the Baltimore District for new projects authorized in the future.

Continued central management of Army Pollution Abatement Program (APAP) during fiscal year 1980 resulted in significant progress in bringing Army installations into compliance with applicable air and water standards. The 1980 Military Construction, Army (MCA) program consisted of fifty-eight pollution-abatement projects at a cost of $144 million. Of the 116 installations identified in 1978 as being out of compliance, only fifty-six remained to be corrected by 30 September 1980, and completion of all projects in the 1980 MCA program would correct thirty of them. The promulgation of regulations implementing the solid waste and hazardous waste provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1980 initiated a major increase in APAP investigative studies. These studies should identify additional noncomplying installations which will require future MCA corrective projects to achieve compliance with solid waste and hazardous waste standards.

During the past year, the Environmental Office, Office of the Assistant Chief of Engineers revised AR 200-1 and prepared an entirely new regulation, AR 200-2, both of which dealt with the environment. AR 200-1 implements several Department of Defense directives and provides general Department of the Army policy for the Army Environmental Program. The Environmental Office completed and distributed a draft revision for initial coordination with the Army staff and major Army commands. Preparation of the final version was well under way at the end of the fiscal year.

AR 200-2, formerly chapter 2 of AR 200-1, establishes Army policy for the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act. The Department of the Army published the draft regulation in the Federal Register on 4 January 1980 for public review and comment. The Environmental Office prepared the final draft on which staffing was complete except for some minor changes by the end of September.

The Secretary of the Army initiated the installation restoration program in 1975 to eliminate chemical contamination at Army installations and its spread to surrounding areas. The major commands identified sixty-seven installations as candidates for the first phase “record search,” i.e., a detailed investigation of all records pertaining

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to the facility to determine if a potential for contaminant migration exists. The Operations and Maintenance Division, Directorate of Military Programs, Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE) recommended the screening of all Army installations to provide a data base for future hazardous materials management programs and to provide information for future facilities management decisions. The Department of the Army added this expansion to the fiscal year 1982-86 budget guidance. The U.S. Army Toxic and Hazardous Materials Agency began preparing detailed plans for implementing the screening.

In September 1980 the Operations and Maintenance Division published the final environmental impact statement on the expanded north boundary containment operations at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colorado. It concluded that the installation of a ground water containment barrier and activated carbon filtration system was the most environmentally acceptable option for halting offpost migration of hazardous materials at the north boundary.

During 1980, the Operations and Maintenance Division and the Directorate of Civil Works, Corps of Engineers, initiated preliminary discussions on establishing a policy that the Corps of Engineers would assist the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a nationwide cleanup of all uncontrolled private hazardous waste disposal sites nationwide.

The EPA published regulations implementing the hazardous waste provisions of the RCRA in the Federal Register on 19 May 1980. These regulations defined the characteristics of “hazardous waste” and provided lists of hazardous wastes. The same Federal Register established a timeframe to notify the EPA of all hazardous waste activities, including generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of waste. Army installations had to complete and return this notification to an EPA Regional Office by 18 August 1980. The Environmental Office distributed a Headquarters, Department of the Army Letter, subject: Implementation of Hazardous Waste Regulations, to all major commands. The Directorate of Military Programs sent the first draft of revised AR 420-47, Solid Waste Management, to the field and received comments. The revised regulation incorporates the new solid waste and hazardous waste guidelines contained in the RCRA.

Each year the Department of the Army confers the Secretary of the Army Environmental Quality Award to the installation conducting the best environmental program. The Army Environmental Committee judged the installations competing for this year’s award on the overall quality of their written presentation and their program achievements. Red River Army Depot at Texarkana, Texas, won the

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award for its accomplishments during 1979. Col. Claude B. Donovan, commander of the depot, received the award at a special presentation at the Pentagon on November 3, 1980. Ft. McClellan, Alabama, and Tobyhanna Army Depot, Pennsylvania, were the first and second runners-up, respectively.

The Army’s role in the national energy program consists of two complementary and often commingled facets: (1) initiatives to enhance conservation and exploit alternative fuels for the Army as an energy consumer and (2) efforts to use the Army’s expertise in these areas to assist other federal agencies. The Interagency Coal Export Task Force (ICETF), established by President Carter in April 1980, fits into the latter category. The Corps of Engineers plays a key role in the task force because of its co-chair position on the inland transportation and port and ocean transportation work groups. The ICETF will report to the President in December 1980 on ways to increase United States coal exports in a manner consistent with other national policies, including the commitment to environmental protection. The major effort has been devoted to compiling information on present and projected levels of domestic and international supply and demand; identifying specific actions that could be undertaken to increase coal export; analyzing the social, economic, and environmental costs and benefits of such actions; and assessing the role to be played by the private sector and, if desirable, by the government.

In 1978 the President directed the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to identify energy areas of mutual interest and assign lead responsibility to the department best equipped to handle it. Successful implementation of the directive dates from an interdepartmental conference held at the National Bureau of Standards in February 1980. The conferees assigned broad responsibility for ground mobility to the Department of the Army, including the lead for terrestrial photovoltaic (solar-electric) development; ground vehicle multifuel engines such as in the new XM1 main battle tank; solar heating and cooling of buildings; woodfired boilers; electric vehicles; energy storage and distribution systems for buildings and other fixed facilities; energy conserving structures and construction technology; and the establishment of an “energy showcase” at Red River Army Depot Lone Star Ammunition Plant.

The Army Energy Office published a completely revised Army Energy Plan in September 1980. The plan surveys the world energy situation, the energy position of the United States, and the national energy objectives and relates them to the Army’s energy goals. The

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new plan contains more detailed and more recent energy data than the 1978 plan which it replaces, updates budget figures, and includes all changes in national and institutional energy objectives since 1978. It provides a framework for the preparation of detailed plans by energy coordinators at Army bases.

For fiscal year 1980 the Army established an energy conservation goal of a 9.5 percent reduction compared to the fiscal year 1975 baseline 276.54 trillion British Thermal Units (BTUs). In practice, consumption totaled only 246.03 trillion BTUs, an actual savings of 14.04 percent, despite increased mechanization and training requirements and an extremely hot summer which greatly increased electrical consumption. The following table, expressed in trillion British Thermal Units, presents a comparison between the 1975 figures for Army energy consumption and those of fiscal year 1980.

¹ A negative figure reflects consumption exceeding the baseline.

As the above table indicates, the Army divides its energy program into two major components: installation operations and mobility operations. Most of the savings since 1975, some 88 percent, have accrued in the former both because of the limits of existing technology and because of the proportionately large amount of energy expended in that area, 84 percent in 1980. The energy conservation program for facilities covers a broad range of actions directed toward overall reductions in energy consumption. Other phases seek to shift major

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energy loads from oil and natural gas to coal, which is far more plentiful. In addition, the Corps of Engineers is working on several projects to minimize the impact of sudden curtailments in supplies.

Army installations require substantially less energy to operate in 1980 than they did in 1973 at the time of the OPEC embargo, but while the reductions have continued they have become smaller each year. Decreased consumption has not sufficed to offset the increase in total energy costs which have resulted from the rapid escalation in unit costs of energy, basically oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity. Electricity has proven the most difficult area in which to achieve energy reductions. Chart 2 below compares trends in energy consumption and energy costs (thermal and purchased electricity) since fiscal year 1973.

CHART 2 —TOTAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION VS. COST FY 73-85

The energy conservation program has achieved major savings through cost avoidance. These savings of approximately $150 million per year are increasing annually.

The Army has achieved its energy savings through numerous local management actions such as consolidation or inactivation of facilities, changes in temperature standards, fine tuning of equipment, and increased motivation of personnel.

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The largest single energy reduction program is the Energy Conservation Investment Program (ECIP). Begun in fiscal year 1976 and programmed through fiscal year 1985, this program focuses on a retrofit of existing facilities. Projects include insulation, storm windows, storm doors, economizers, changes in lighting, heating and electrical controls, and specialized monitoring and control systems. The Department of the Army expects ECIP to provide a 12 percent reduction in energy use per square foot of existing facilities in fiscal year 1985 from the usage in fiscal year 1975. Other programs should reduce consumption by an additional 8 percent.

The policy of the Department of the Army with respect to energy conservation in new construction is based on Public Law (PL) 94-385, the Energy Conservation Standards Act of 1976, and Executive Order (EO) 12003. Title III of PL 94-385 redirects federal policies and practices to ensure that new buildings financed by the federal government will incorporate reasonable energy conservation features. The act requires federal agencies to establish design energy budgets for all new buildings by August 1979. EO 12003 established energy conservation goals for new and existing federal facilities. It mandated a reduction by 1985 of 45 percent in average annual energy use when compared to the 1975 level. In March 1979 the Department of Defense issued interim energy budgets for new facilities which adopted, with modifications, budgets prepared by the Corps of Engineers in 1978. A triservice committee is currently assisting the Department of Defense in updating its interim energy budgets.

The Energy Monitoring and Control System (EMCS)—a means of controlling and measuring building mechanical and electrical systems such as heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting—aids in energy and manpower conservation and the more efficient operation of old and new buildings. The Army has six manual EMCSs installed and operating. Three Army installations have automatic EMCSs in initial startup status. The Corps of Engineers has forty-two systems in design and various stages of construction. The MCA program through fiscal year 1982 contains fifty-one EMCSs.

The Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 and EO 12217, 18 June 1980, seek to reduce national dependence on nonrenewable and foreign energy sources. They establish as a major goal for the Army a 30 percent reduction in oil consumption at Army facilities in fiscal year 1985 compared to fiscal year 1975. The lowering of authorized space heating and water heating temperature will assist in achieving this goal as will a number of major construction projects planned over the next few years. The fiscal year 1980 programs included a new wood and coal fired boiler plant at the Red

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River Army Depot to replace two gas-oil plants. Plans also call for the introduction of a wood-coal boiler plant at Fort Stewart, Georgia; the addition of a new coal-fired boiler plant at the Iowa ammunition plant; the transfer of generating capacity from an oil plant to an existing central coal plant at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana; and construction of approximately fifteen recovery-refuse incinerators.

The Corps’ Districts are conducting a number of feasibility studies on the increased use of wood, coal, and refuse. Two studies at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Fort Lewis, Washington, are considering the potential of joint ventures with the local utility companies. During the past two fiscal years, the Corps conducted test firings of wood pellets in Army boilers. Additional studies are under way on the feasibility of wood gasification to provide substitute or supplemental fuel for Army boilers. OCE issued a recent policy change which requires that new boiler plants with a capacity of generating over twenty Mega British Thermal Units per Hour (BTUH) use coal or another alternate fuel. At the direction of the President, the Corps is making a survey of all major boiler plants, those with a capacity of fifty Mega BTUH, to determine which should be converted to coal or some alternate fuel.

The initiative for an Army effort in solar energy came from a variety of sources: the Corps of Engineers, the Surgeon General, and U.S. Army Forces Command. Beginning in 1975, the Army established several MCA projects which included solar heating, cooling, and/or domestic hot water as demonstration programs. Two demonstration projects partially funded by the Department of Energy are operational and include the heating and cooling of a battalion headquarters and classroom building and one family housing unit. In addition, nine Department of Defense funded facilities—including one bachelor enlisted quarters building, two barracks, two dining halls, one dental clinic, and three Army Reserve Centers—are operational. Three Department of Defense funded facilities and one Department of Energy funded facility with solar energy were under construction as part of this initial Army effort.

The fiscal year 1979 and 1980 Military Construction Authorization Acts, PL 95-356 and PL 96-125, directed the Army to install solar energy systems in all new facilities to the extent that such systems were cost effective. As a result of these acts eleven projects are under construction, and nineteen projects are in the study or design stage. In addition, the Corps of Engineers studied approximately ninety other projects which it found were not cost effective or, in a few instances, for which the Army lacked funds.

The Huntsville Division of the Corps of Engineers has supported the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy Demonstration Plant Pro-

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gram since early 1974. The program seeks to encourage the commercial application of the chemical conversion of high sulfur coals into clean liquid or gaseous fuels through a series of scaled-down plants. The government fully funds the design effort, while the government and the contractor jointly fund the construction and demonstration phases.

In June 1975 a Memorandum of Understanding formalized Corps support for the Fossil Energy Demonstration Program. It outlined Corps activities in preliminary planning; proposal preparation and evaluation; contract negotiating, estimating; equipment procurement; review of designs for cost effectiveness, adequacy, and constructability; site investigations and evaluations; development of configuration management; quality assurance; logistic support and project management plans; and special tasks required in the development of new programs. The Departments of Army and Energy signed a new Interagency Agreement superseding the 1975 Memorandum of Understanding on 1 August 1980. The Interagency Agreement transferred contract officer authority to the Corps of Engineers for the balance of two engineering and design contracts awarded by the Department of Energy and valued at approximately $35 million. The agreement changed the role of the Corps from one of administrative support to one of operational responsibility.

The Army’s implementation of energy reduction projects actually preceded the initiation of systematic planning in the area. In 1976, the same year as the introduction of ECIP and the passage of the Energy Conservation Standards Act, the Corps of Engineers began the Basewide Energy Studies (BWES) program to develop a systematic plan for projects that would result in the reduction of energy consumption at each major Army installation. Funded initially at the $1.124 million level, BWES was essentially a pilot program focusing on three installations: Fort Rucker, Alabama; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Expanded and renamed the Energy Engineering Analysis Program (EEAP), it investigates all techniques of energy conservation which are reasonable, practical, and economical, including operation methods and procedures as well as the physical characteristics of the facilities. The results of studies developed from the program allow the Army to establish priorities in an orderly manner for ECIP and new military construction projects that will reduce energy consumption and provide the most efficient energy use at each installation. In addition EEAP describes low cost and no cost projects which can be accomplished by work order or readjustment of machinery by operating personnel.

As of 30 September 1980, the Corps of Engineers had EEAP    

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studies under way at seventy-six CONUS installations. It had completed an additional eleven studies, including seven on Defense Logistics Agency installations. Nineteen studies are under way concerning Eighth Army installations in Korea. The Corps began the first seven EEAP studies in Europe during fiscal year 1980. The Corps plans to let contracts for consultants to prepare EEAP studies of an additional forty-two CONUS and eighteen European installations in fiscal year 1981.

Fiscal year 1980 was the first year in which Congress had specifically appropriated funds for the program. Congress provided EEAP with $15 million. In the past the various commands funded most of the program using yearend Operation Maintenance Activities (OMA) funds. The Army projects funding the EEAP for $15 million in both 1981 and 1982 and for $10 million in 1983. The results of the EEAP studies are starting to become apparent in the construction program. In the fiscal year 1982 ECIP program, 62 percent of the CONUS ECIP projects resulted from EEAP studies.

In contrast to that portion of the Army’s Energy Program dealing with installations, work in the mobility section remained largely in the area of research and development. During the past few years, the Department of Defense has sought to minimize the impact of a disruption in the supply of foreign oil on that tactical efficiency of the armed forces through the Defense Mobility Fuels Action Plan. Army research and development in alternative and synthetic fuels is guided by this plan.

Three agencies within DARCOM—the Mobility Equipment Research and Development Command (MERADCOM), the Tank-Automatic Research and Development Command (TARADCOM) and the Aviation Research and Development Command (AVRADCOM)—hold joint responsibility for Army fuel research. Semiannual technical program reviews ensure that their work is effectively coordinated. MERADCOM acts as the lead agency in mobility fuels research, development, test, and evaluation (RDTE).

The three major efforts within the Army’s Alternative and Synthetic Fuels Program are: (1) development of an alternative and synthetic fuels capability; (2) creation of a new, accelerated fuel-engine qualification procedure; and (3) evaluation of gasohol use in tactical equipment. The first two evolved from the Defense Mobility Fuels Action Plan, the third from the Defense Authorization Act of 1979 which required the Department of Defense to procure domestically produced alcohol or alcohol-gasoline blends.

Army laboratories gained their first experience in synthetic fuel evaluation in 1973 and 1974 during work on the Navy’s Char-Oil Energy Development (COED) program to produce gasoline distillate

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from coal by pyrosis, any chemical change brought about by heat alone. The product quality proved marginal and led to further testing, first on the use of steam to extract aviation turbine fuel (JP-5) from tar sands and then on the employment of the Parahoe above-ground retort process to produce gasoline, aviation turbine fuel (JP-5, JP-5/JET A, and JP-8), and diesel fuel from shale. The effort to distill satisfactory aviation turbine and diesel fuels from shale has completed the laboratory phase of determining the fuel’s physical and chemical properties called characterization and specification, and limited component and single cylinder engine testing has begun. DARCOM anticipates completing full-scale durability and endurance testing during fiscal year 1981. This will pose certain problems in terms of volume of production. At yearend, the evaluation of the most recent shale-derived fuels had required approximately ten barrels. The 1981 testing program will require between 3,000 and 3,500 barrels. DARCOM hopes to meet this challenge and go on to fleet testing in late 1981. Chart 3 below illustrates the procedure which MERADCOM has developed since 1973 to evaluate synthetic fuels. Each stage requires progressively more fuel.

The Department of Energy predicts that a successful research program in shale-derived synthetic fuels will alleviate the need for other

CHART 3—ARMY SYNTHETIC FUELS EVALUATION PROCESS

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synthetic fuels for another two decades. The Army, however, cannot afford to make its mobility hostage to an as yet unproven technique. DARCOM will begin RDTE on coal liquification in fiscal year 1981 and on biomass derived fuels, essentially alcohols derived from wood, vegetation, etc., the following year.

The Department of Defense in late 1979 directed the Army to develop more efficient procedures in qualifying military fuels in order that it might react quickly to changes in the petroleum refining industry. A new fuel normally takes five to eight years to qualify for use in Army engine and powerplant accessory systems. The Department of Defense, noting the five years which the Army took to convert to unleaded gasoline, wants the process streamlined.

DARCOM began laboratory testing of gasohol, the third major component of the Alternative and Synthetic Fuels Program, in fiscal year 1980. The command expects that completion of the gasohol evaluation for tactical vehicles will require another two years. The Department of Energy and other federal and state agencies are testing gasohol for administrative vehicles and will furnish the results to the Army when available.

Much of the remainder of the work in the mobility section of the Army’s Energy Plan fell into the area of planning. The Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations and Plans, upon the recommendation of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics, directed the Concept Analysis Agency to validate the average fuel usage rates for tracked combat vehicles for use in all future computations of requirements for the petroleum war reserve. This study, still under way at the end of the fiscal year, promises to have a major impact upon future Army planning. During 1980, the Directorate of Transportation, Energy and Troop Support in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics provided $21 million for petroleum equipment procurement in the fiscal year 1982-86 program. The expenditure makes a major contribution toward procurement of needed prepositioned materiel configured to unit sets (POMCUS) and war reserves. It constitutes an 18 percent increase over prior year funding.

The Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC) is surveying transportation patterns in order to save fuel by consolidating shipments. It is also studying the tradeoffs between lessening dependence on air transport and the need to create large stockpiles of goods. Finally, it is developing a command level management information system to identify performance trends and check carrier performance on a state, regional, or national level and by military service. CERS (Carrier Evaluation and Reporting System) II will allow MTMC to analyze local performance in comparison with the

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national average and quickly identify problem areas requiring remedial action.

During fiscal year 1980, Army activities were again frequently challenged in federal court. For the first time in several years the caseload of the Office of the Judge Advocate General climbed to over 1,500 cases on hand.

Cases concerning officers released from active duty as a result of nonselection for temporary promotion in 1975 and 1976 continued to provide a significant work load. The Solicitor General of the United States decided not to appeal the adverse decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Dilley v. Alexander to the Supreme Court. The Army must reinstate the plaintiffs in these cases to active duty and provide backpay, allowances, and other benefits of full constructive service. In most cases this action will entitle these officers to active duty retirement.

In the same manner, the Solicitor General made no appeal from the adverse decisions of the Court of Claims in Doyle v. United States and Adams v. United States. As a result the plaintiffs in the Doyle case are entitled to backpay and retirement status.

The issues concerning the validity of promotion boards are also pending in fifty cases in the court of claims and over twenty cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Judge Advocate General expects the courts will decide these cases within calendar year 1981.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Jones v. Alexander decided that the RELOOK boards and the 1975 promotion board properly constituted a “pass over” within the meaning of Army Regulations. The U.S. Supreme Court denied plaintiff’s petition for certiorari in October 1980.

In the cases of Ben Sholom v. Secretary of the Army the district court decided that plaintiff’s discharge from the Army Reserve violated plaintiff’s rights of privacy and substantive due process and that the Army Regulation in question was too broad. The Army made no appeal from the decisions because of a more recent favorable decision in a Navy case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In addition, the Army plans to change Army Regulation 135-178.

Many cases arising from Army testing of hallucinogens remain in litigation. The government won Stanley v. CIA and Nagy v. United States in the lower court; they are still pending in the appellate

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courts. Pretrial discovery is proceeding in the cases of Loeh v. United States and Chaffin v. United States. In both cases motion to dismiss were partially denied last year.

Litigation has been stayed in the case of Thornwell v. United States while a private bill on Thornwell’s behalf is pending in Congress. The Senate approved the bill and the House Judiciary Committee has made a favorable report.

A series of cases concerning the death of a civilian after administration of mescaline as part of an Army research contract—Barrett v. United States, Barrett v. Hoffman, Barrett v. Arthur—is continuing before the courts. Dispositive motions are pending in other cases concerning administration of drugs to military volunteers at Edgewood Arsenal.

Cases concerning the atmospheric nuclear testing program continue to be filed. In the leading case, Jaffee v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the district court’s earlier dismissal of the claims against individual defendants, holding that the Feres doctrine did not apply to intentional torts. The Feres doctrine holds that the government is not liable for injuries to service members which arise from or were incurred incident to service. Many courts have held that the same immunity from suit by service members injured incident to service also is provided to federal officials, when sued in their individual capacities for actions taken within the scope of their official duties. Later, however, the Court of Appeals granted the Government’s petition for a rehearing en banc and vacated the earlier decision. Both sides have filed supplemental briefs, and the case is awaiting oral argument. In other nuclear testing cases appeals are in progress after the courts granted government motions to dismiss.

The case filed by the Governor of the State of Utah against the Secretary of Defense to prevent the movement of Weteye Bombs from Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colorado, to Tooele Army Depot, Utah, was dismissed after the Department of Defense decided not to move the bombs. Weteye is the nickname of a five hundred pound Navy bomb, the MK 116 Model O, filled with nerve agent GB.

In November 1979 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Giles v. Secretary of the Army, a class action concerning discharges for drug abuse based, in part, on the results of mandatory urinalysis. The court ordered review of more than 10,000 discharges and ordered upgrading of the discharges. The Secretary of the Army appealed the decision arguing several substantive defects in the decision of the lower court and that even if the district court was correct on the substantive issues, the relief was overbroad. The Court of Appeals for the District of

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Columbia affirmed the lower court’s decision on the substantive issues, but held, however, that the remedy mandated was overbroad in that it required automatic upgrading of discharge characterization, even though nondrug related evidence in certain cases might support a lesser characterization. The Secretary decided against seeking rehearing or seeking certiorari.

In tort litigation medical malpractice cases continue to present a substantial work load. Further, the Army settled, for substantial sums of money, a number of cases concerning injuries or deaths resulting from explosions of ordnance removed from firing ranges.

The number of medical care recovery claims climbed to 5,355 during the period of this report. These actions resulted in the government recovering almost $5.5 million. United States Army Claims Service, Europe, again led all other offices with a recovery of almost $1.5 million.

In the case of Mable Nevin v. United States concerning atmospheric testing of bacteria, the government’s motion for summary judgment was denied. Trial on the merits is scheduled for 1981. In Burchfield v. Gaon, a suit against Army doctors for their failure to diagnose the long term effects of nerve gas, the court rejected a U.S. motion for a summary judgment on the grounds that the statute of limitations barred such an action.

During fiscal year 1980, Agent Orange litigation started to significantly involve the Army. In January 1980, corporate defendants in a consolidated action in New York, involving over one thousand plaintiffs who claim that they were injured by exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, impleaded the United States as a third party defendant. The complaints allege inter alia that the United States owes a duty of indemnification to the manufacturers of the defoliant used in Vietnam because the government allegedly established the specifications by which the companies synthesized and distributed the herbicide. The defendants initiated discovery against the United States. The Army recommended that the government oppose discovery. The Department of justice filed a dispositive motion in March. It is now pending.

Coffey v. United States and Coffey v. The Dow Chemical Corporation are the first cases brought against the United States and individually named federal defendants arising from the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The former suit is under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) against the United States and former Secretaries of Defense Melvin R. Laird and Elliott L. Richardson, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, former Secretary of the Army Stanley R. Resor, and Secretary of the Army Alexander. The latter case is similar to the actions in New York and has been consolidated with  

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them. In the FTCA suit, a dispositive motion was recently granted to the United States but was denied to the individual defendants. A motion to vacate that decision was denied.

The Army’s alleged involvement in Love Canal, Agent Orange, and related herbicides contributed to the Access and Release Branch of The Adjutant General’s Center becoming actively involved in Army litigation in 1980. The Access and Release Branch received a large volume of Freedom of Information Act requests from law firms for documents to be used in court. At one point, eleven attorneys representing various chemical manufacturers descended on the office for three days and reviewed the locator data on the Vietnam records in search of information on Agent Orange. The Access and Release Branch received a discovery notice from the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, on behalf of Dow Chemical, requesting sixty-five separate documents concerning Agent Orange. At the request of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the branch also prepared a study of the effect of Agent Orange on American troops during the Vietnam War for the White House Interagency Working Group on Herbicide Orange and Related Herbicides.

The state of Alabama and a group of commercial fishermen voluntarily requested dismissal of their suit against the Army for the release into the streams and lakes of the state of DDT manufactured at a privately leased plant on the grounds of Redstone Arsenal between 1947 and 1970.

The cases of American Civil Liberties Union v. City of Chicago and Alliance to End Repression v. Rochford are class action suits for damages and injunctive relief for alleged violation of civil rights in the Chicago area by the FBI, the Department of the Army, and others. The suits primarily concern alleged surveillance of dissident groups and individuals. Plaintiffs are seeking records of military intelligence activity in the Chicago area directed against nonaffiliated U.S. persons. Settlement discussions were under way when the year ended.

One of the most significant actions in litigation during the year was the settlement of the Berlin Democratic Club v. Brown case. This case, which challenged intelligence activities in Berlin, involved assembly and review of thousands of documents. The settlement provides for release of documents to the plaintiffs after review by the Army. This process will take several months so that final settlement of the case will not be completed until sometime in fiscal year 1982.

The plaintiffs in Dostal v. Vance appealed the dismissal of their case. The case is an outgrowth of litigation begun in 1978 as Gemeinschaft Zum Schutz v. Marienthal in which the plaintiffs

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sought to stop housing construction in Berlin based on an alleged violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

In 1976, with construction on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway well under way in Alabama and Mississippi, a coalition of project opponents, led and largely financed by the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad, brought suit in the Federal courts seeking to enjoin further construction. The plaintiffs alleged that many illegalities had been perpetrated by the Department of the Army and the Corps of Engineers in modifying project design after the 1946 authorization; that the project was not in compliance with various environmental laws; and that the project did not have necessary economic justification. The most significant allegation said that the Corps was constructing many features and dimensions of the “Tenn-Tom” project in a manner not authorized by Congress. Four years of litigation ensued, in which the plaintiffs conducted exhaustive discovery proceedings against the Department of the Army and the Corps concerning the project. Following two weeks of hearings, the Federal trial court ruled that all but one of the many features and dimensions of the waterway project which plaintiffs had alleged to be illegal were in fact entirely legal and proper, and that the Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Army has used their discretionary authority to alter project design responsibly and legally. Only one of the many challenged design features of the project did not receive the court’s explicit endorsement: Concerning that issue—the 300-foot channel width—the court held that no decision was necessary or possible because the equitable doctrine of laches barred the plaintiffs’ challenge to the 300-foot width. The equitable doctrine of laches is the legal principle that in a civil case a plaintiff loses his right to contest an action of a defendant if the plaintiff does not do so in a timely fashion and if the redress requested would be prejudicial to the interests of the defendant. The Secretary of the Army in 1966 gave public notice of the decision of the Corps of Engineers to widen the channel and work began soon after. The plaintiffs did not begin legal action on this issue until 1978. The Plaintiffs appealed the trial court’s decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed it and later denied the plaintiffs’ request for a rehearing en banc. The plaintiffs then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their discredited allegations on the authorization issues; the U.S. Department of justice opposed that petition on the grounds that the plaintiffs’ case was totally without merit. The Supreme Court had not ruled on the petition at the end of the fiscal year.

In the case of United States v. Harford Sands, Inc., the United States successfully sued the defendant over damage to a governmental

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easement near Aberdeen Proving Ground. The court enjoined the defendant from interfering further with the Army easement and ordered the company to pay damages. In United States v. Reeves Telcom, where the government sued a developer who built a dam that changed the flow of subsurface waters and undermined the government railroad’s right of way, the U.S. magistrate found in favor of the United States on some complaints and in favor of the defendant in others. The district court will next hear arguments to determine liability and damages. Discovery is continuing in U.S. v. Chamberland Manufacturing Company and Holcroft and Company.

The Army continued its record of successfully defending against union efforts to stop contracting out under the Commercial-Industrial-Type-Activities (CITA) program. In a major contracting out case at Fort Gordon, Georgia, A.F.G.E.. v. Brown, the district court denied the union’s petition for a temporary restraining order on jurisdictional grounds. The union is appealing this decision. Another district court denied a similar petition concerning contracting out of civilian Army activities at Selfridge Air Force Base in Michigan.

Litigation continued on the cases attacking Army policies in USAREUR which favor German nationals or dependents over other American citizens.

The issues in all Equal Employment Opportunity class actions continued to concern the Army, although only two new cases were filed in 1980. The two new class actions—Godwin v. Alexander and Cho v. Alexander—allege sex discrimination at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and sex, national origin, and race discrimination at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Both of these cases are in the preclass certification discovery stages. Several other class actions are still pending. These cases are characteristically slow moving because of the massive discovery involved. The class action of Valdez v. Froehlke, however, is in the final settlement stages.

Two suits challenged the Army’s policy of precluding the enlistment of someone who had undergone a sex change operation. In Joanne Michelle Clark v. Harold Brown the Court of Appeals sustained the lower court’s dismissal of the case. The plaintiff then brought suit in the U.S. Court of Claims. Pretrial preparation continued in Jan Doe v. Secretary of the Army.

The first year of experience with cases arising from the Civil Service Reform Act provided no unexpected developments. Plaintiffs, as expected, had some difficulty in determining the proper forum for their cases and there was some lag time in EEO cases filed, while plaintiffs tested the remedies available at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

During the period of this report, debarment of contractors

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became a significant work load. Cases arising from the procurement activities of the Army-Air Force Exchange Service were a matter of particular concern.

Plaintiffs challenged actions across the spectrum of Army activities. These routine cases, too numerous to mention individually, questioned military and civilian promotions, discharges, eliminations or terminations, procurement activities, and actions on Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (SADBU), created in April 1979, reports directly to the Secretary of the Army and is his principal adviser and assistant for all matters pertaining to the implementation and administration of programs under the Small Business Act, the Labor Surplus Areas Program, and the Woman-owned Business Programs. The SADBU Office develops policies and procedures to implement socio-economic acquisition programs, establishes and monitors agency goals, and assures that offices at major commands are properly staffed to effectively execute these programs. The office conducts outreach, liaison, source development activities, and seminars. The SADBU office cooperates with and consults on a regular basis with the Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Small Business Administration, and other government and industrial organizations in order to carry out its program.

The Army’s awards to small businesses in fiscal year 1980 totaled $4 billion or 26 percent of the total amount awarded to all businesses. Set-asides exclusively for small businesses (items which can only be bid on by small businesses) rose to $1.7 billion or 10.8 percent of the total. This is the highest percentage of small business set-asides attained by the Army in any fiscal year.

In fiscal year 1980 the Army led all federal agencies in contracting with disadvantaged small businesses under the provisions of Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act with awards totaling $237 million, an increase of $70 million over fiscal year 1979. Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act provides that governmental agencies will meet a certain portion of their requirements through contracts with disadvantaged small businesses. The Army has now led all federal agencies in awards under the 8(a) program for eleven of the past twelve years. Total awards and subcontracts with minority firms reached $549 million in fiscal year 1980, an increase of 36 percent over the previous year.

In January 1979 the President designated the Army to participate

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in an 8(a) pilot program with the Small Business Administration. The program, which augments the regular 8(a) program, differs from it in that the Small Business Administration has authority, subject to certain qualifications, to unilaterally demand and be awarded Army contracts which it then subcontracts for performance by socially and economically disadvantaged small business firms. The Small Business Administration has awarded $20.9 million under the pilot program since its inception.

It is federal policy that businesses owned by women shall have the maximum opportunity to participate in contracts awarded by the government. Although there is no requirement to give preference to such firms, Army contracting offices use their best efforts to assist those businesses to compete for awards. Awards made to them reached a total of $90 million in fiscal year 1980, which greatly exceeded the goal of $37 million.

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