WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department said in a report this week that 160 former military sites in California have unexploded bombs and shells that pose public safety risks and will cost an estimated $2.3 billion to clean up.

Seventy-nine additional sites were identified at installations still being used by the military, including 14 at Beale Air Force Base near Marysville, that will cost another $4.3 billion in cleanup costs.

The information was contained in a report ordered last year by Congress and is the first detailed listing of sites where old ordnance that threatens the unwary has yet to be removed. The listings also include sites that are contaminated with toxic substances related to the munitions.
The report said roughly 138 other locations in the state have been cleaned up, secured or determined not to pose a risk after thorough investigation.

Many of the sites are former bomb, artillery or gun ranges. In the Sacramento area, the list includes a 40-acre tract at the Yolo County Airport near Davis that is restricted from public access and is considered a relatively low risk.

But other locations remain open to public access, with higher risk assessments.

A 132-acre site at Hammer Field near Fresno is described in the report as a high-risk area with unrestricted public access, but the problem there may be toxic chemicals. Dennis Heitmann, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager working to clean up the World War II base, said he is unaware of reports of unexploded ordnance at the site.

Congressional members who fought to require the report said at a press conference Tuesday that the military needs to develop more thorough information about all the sites, and then seek the money for cleanup work. At current rates of funding, it will take 130 years to clean up all the sites, they said.

Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, said he was surprised that the report failed to list much information about contaminated sites at the former Fort Ord Army post -- even though the base has been closed for a decade and $327 million already has been spent on cleanup.

"Some of the missing data is just too simple to find," Farr said. "The military knows a lot more than they are putting into this report."

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, said the Pentagon must invest more money in cleaning up the old installations before Congress is likely to authorize a 2005 round of base closings.

"We are not going to let them close any more until they have a plan for cleaning up those that already have been closed," said Tauscher, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Congress gave the military a June 1 deadline for listing all the probable sites where old explosives could be a problem. The Defense Department said 553 sites were added to the inventory of locations in producing the report, bringing the total to 2,307 nationwide.

"The risks posed at defense sites vary greatly," the study said, adding that in some cases the health threat is not that old ordnance is still live and can be detonated but that toxic chemicals from them have seeped into the ground.

In some cases, an investigation may reveal problems so serious that rapid cleanup is required, while other sites can be safeguarded simply by putting up a fence, the report said.

Such is the case at a 12,566-acre parcel identified as the Siskiyou bombing target near Macdoel. The military said the response action there was deemed complete, with public access restricted by fencing.

But Aimee Houghton, associate director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, said there is concern that the Defense Department has been too quick to clear suspect locations. Houghton said congressional auditors recently urged a second look at installations cleared from the list because of uncertainties about whether everything had been found.

Tauscher said she is worried that not enough is being done to warn the public about dangerous sites, even though they might be remote.

She said Angel Island in San Francisco Bay remains at high risk of unexploded ordnance or munitions, and anyone with a boat can land there.

"We need site security or a public education program so that people know what is there," she said.