Department Of Defense Audit Report - Laboratory Support Services for Environmental Testing - Appendix B: Summary of Prior Audits and Other Reviews

General Accounting Office

General Accounting Office Report No. GAO/RCED-95-118, (OSD Case No. B-260566)

"Nuclear Facility Cleanup: Centralized Contracting of Laboratory Analysis Would Produce Budgetary Savings"

May 11, 1995

The report states that the Department of Energy paid substantially higher prices than the EPA for the same types of laboratory analysis at commercial laboratories because the Department of Energy used decentralized contracts and the EPA used centralized contracts. The Department of Energy decentralized approach, which involved multiple contract awards and contract management activities, resulted in numerous inefficiencies. The General Accounting Office recommended that the Secretary of Energy centralize the procurement of its commonly used laboratory analyses for environmental contaminants in the cleanup of its nuclear facilities and to identify and eliminate the contractor resources that will no longer be needed under a central procurement system. The General Accounting Office did not obtain written agency comments on a draft of this report. However, the General Accounting Office did discuss the factual information with Department of Energy officials. The officials generally agreed with the facts presented.

Inspector General, DoD

Inspector General, DoD, Report No. 96-065

"*Quick-Reaction Report on Wastewater Testing at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Virginia"

February 2, 1996

The report states that the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (the Command) did not plan for or use the most cost-effective method for testing wastewater. As a result, the Command could spend about $310,000 in unnecessary costs for the testing of wastewater over the next 5 years. We recommended that the Command perform all environmental testing of wastewater at its in-house laboratory and remove the requirement to test wastewater from the current solicitation for contracted environmental tests.

The Department of the Navy generally concurred with the recommendation to remove the requirement to test wastewater from the solicitation for environmental tests and stated that until the in-house lab has a proven record of uninterrupted testing, the contract serves as a backup.

Army Audit Agency

Army Audit Agency Report No. AA 96-247

"Contracting for Defense Environmental Restoration Account Projects"

July 22, 1996

The report stated that environmental managers did not effectively review testing costs to identify significant differences in the prices that contractors charged for performing similar types of tests. As a result, the Army unnecessarily paid about $9 million for tests over a l-year period, with the potential for overpayments of about $48 million over 6 years. The Army Audit Agency recommended that the Army centralize contracting for testing services. The Army generally agreed with the recommendation and said it would take corrective action.

Environmental Protection Agency

Inspector General, EPA, Report No. ElSKF5-09-0031-5100505

"Environmental Data Quality at DoD Superfund Sites in Region 9"

September 26, 1995

The report states that Region 9 did not significantly strengthen its oversight program over DoD environmental test results, even though serious laboratory problems were identified. The report also states that the Region did not require DoD to modify the quality assurance project plans to increase the opportunity to detect data quality problems. EPA recommended that Region 9 could better fulfill its oversight role and assist DoD in avoiding future data quality problems and cleanup delays by strengthening oversight of quality assurance activities, including key quality assurance activities in quality assurance project plans, and ensuring that activities comply with quality assurance project plans.

The Region did not specifically address the recommendations; however, they commented by identifying 10 ongoing and planned corrective actions to improve data quality. These actions included requiring DoD to follow the Environmental Protection Agency data quality objective process that DoD complied with its quality assurance project plans. and ensuring that DoD complied with its quality assurance project plans.

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