Funds Sought to Clear Toxics at Closing Military Bases : Environment: Lawmakers warn that hazardous waste may keep these facilities fenced off and useless for years unless action is taken now.

Legislation was introduced Wednesday earmarking $81.6 million to start cleaning up hazardous waste sites at military bases slated for closing across the nation.

Unless money is set aside specifically for the task, congressmen warned that some of 86 bases being closed by the Pentagon over the next five years could pose long-term threats to the environment and could wind up fenced off for years--or forever--awaiting cleanup.

The issue is particularly pressing because the Defense Department, hoping to ease the economic impact of the base closings, has promised local communities that the sites could be used as industrial parks, housing developments or other activities that would provide jobs and other benefits.

“We cannot leave these facilities lying fallow for years before the cleanup and transfer of the property is completed,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento), who proposed the legislation.

Similar concerns were expressed in a resolution introduced Monday in the General Assembly in California.

Fazio’s bill drew immediate support from Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), both of whom attended a press conference with Fazio, as well as from the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

The money, which would come from the Pentagon’s existing budget for environmental cleanups, would be only the first installment on a bill of unknown proportions for dealing with toxic pollution at bases as they are closed.

For instance, the government estimates that it will cost as much as $80 million to clean up the Presidio in San Francisco, which is scheduled to be closed and turned into a national park.

The White House Office of Management and Budget estimates that cleaning up toxic waste at facilities owned by the federal government will cost $140 billion to $200 billion over the next 30 years. The Pentagon’s cleanup program is concentrating on the worst sites first.

But Fazio and Aspin said that priority should go to bases being closed now so that they can be put to productive uses as soon as possible.

As an example of what could happen under current regulations, Fazio mentioned Hamilton Field, a former military airfield in the Marin County town of Novato. Two developers agreed in 1985 to pay $45 million for 400 acres at the closed base. But the deal has not become final because the Pentagon has still not cleaned up a 26-acre toxic dump on the property.

Fazio’s bill would transfer $81.6 million from the current Pentagon environmental cleanup budget to a separate fund that could be used only for bases being closed. That way, he said, the sites would not have to compete with active bases, where the pollution may be worse.

In addition, some money raised through the sale of closed bases would be used to clean up other bases in the future.

The legislation also would establish an interagency task force to report to Congress on ways to expedite cleanups at bases being closed. Its members would include the Defense and Justice departments, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and representatives of state environmental departments.

In Sacramento, Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) has introduced a resolution calling on the state Department of Health Services to adopt a policy spelling out state demands that the military clean up bases before it closes them.

The resolution, introduced last Monday, would require that the policy detailing cleanup procedures be adopted by July 31, 1991. The measure noted that toxic pollution “is a major obstacle to reuse” of the bases slated for closure.

Staff writer Dan Morain in San Francisco contributed to this story.