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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	20-E-0169
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\ Office of Inspector General
At a Glance
Why We Did This Project
We conducted this evaluation
to determine whether the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's Superfund
institutional controls achieved
their stated goal of preventing
human exposure at Superfund
sites. This report focuses on
our evaluation of Fort Ord, a
28,000-acre Superfund site in
California that was a former
Army base. Future reports will
describe our evaluations of
institutional controls at other
Superfund sites.
We selected Fort Ord because
of the human health risk of
potential exposure to
unexploded munitions. Also,
the 2017 Five-Year Review of
Fort Ord stated that trespassing
was an ongoing issue at the
site.
We reviewed a sample of the
institutional controls in place at
Fort Ord—fencing and
signage—to deter trespassing
and protect human health from
explosive constituents and
other contaminants.
EPA Oversight Provided Reasonable Controls to Deter
and Minimize Trespassing at the Fort Ord Superfund
Site
What We Found
During our site visit, we found that the EPA, the
U.S. Army, and other organizations use fencing
and signage as institutional controls at Fort Ord to
deter and minimize illegal trespassing and to be
protective of human health. The Army and the EPA
have not deemed Fort Ord protective of human
health and the environment due to the projected
amount of munitions cleanup and the estimated
time it could take to complete that cleanup.
The steps taken by the Army
with EPA oversight,
combined with planned
follow-up actions moving
forward, represent a
reasonable effort to deter
and minimize trespassing.
After Fort Ord was closed in 1994, use of off-road transit in the property was
restricted to authorized personnel unless otherwise posted. Despite the site's
restricted access, trespassing continues. The Presidio of Monterey Police have
documented trespassing incidents since 1997.
During our site visit, we verified that the fencing and gates were clearly marked with
signs indicating the danger in the area and that entry was not allowed. In addition,
although trespassing is a recurring problem at the site, we verified that the integrity
of the fencing and gates was not compromised and that secured areas were not
breached. For the institutional controls we sampled at the time of our site visit, the
steps taken by the Army with EPA oversight, combined with planned follow-up
actions moving forward, represent a reasonable effort to deter and minimize
trespassing and prevent people from being exposed to unexploded munitions and
chemical soil contamination.
We make no recommendations in this report.
This report addresses the
following:
• Cleaning up and
revitalizing land.
Address inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or
OIG WEBPOSTINGS@epa.gov.
List of OIG reports.

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