Back in 1982, Congress decided to promote the recycling of items such as plastic and aluminum cans by letting military bases keep any money they made by recycling for recreation.
But congressional investigators say Tooele Army Depot's formal recycling program never included cans and plastic but improperly made millions by "mutilating" and selling old all-terrain vehicles for scrap or selling old ammunition brass.Such materials were supposed to be excluded from the recycling program, and money from them should have been returned to the U.S. Treasury or military industrial funds, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office, a research arm of Congress.
Instead, investigators said Tooele spent it to build a base fishing pond and a $250,000 pistol and rifle range, and to buy "expensive recreational vehicles and other equipment."
The GAO said such action by Tooele and other bases it visited - including one competing with Hill Air Force Base for survival - shows "widespread abuse in (the) Department of Defense's recycling program."
Tooele flatly denies any wrongdoing and says it always operated within rules and spent money properly.
"There was no conscious, unilateral undertaking on the part of any organization on Tooele Army Depot - tenants included - to circumvent either public law or regulatory guidance," the base said in a written response to questions about the GAO report.
The GAO especially slammed Tooele and other bases for receiving recreation money from items it said were never intended to be sold through the recycling program. "These items include vehicles . . . and any material that requires demilitarization or mutilation prior to sale," it said.
Despite that, it said Tooele "received almost $2 million during fiscal years 1991 and 1992, much from the sale of Army all-terrain vehicles that require mutilation prior to sale."
Tooele spokesman David Hunt said the M561 Gamma Goats are relatively small all-terrain vehicles, which he said are required to be unserviceable before they can be sold as scrap.
A written statement by Tooele said sale of the mutilated vehicles through the recycling program was proper because it obtained a memorandum of understanding outlining their destruction and sale from the Defense Logistics Agency, which is in charge of selling materials for the military's recycling program.
It said higher commands and legal counsel approved that memorandum. "The depot was acting in good faith as it addressed the issue of disposing the all-terrain vehicles," the Tooele statement said.
The GAO also complained that an arm of the Defense Logistics Agency at Tooele "was selling brass from demilitarized ammunition and returning the proceeds to the Tooele Army Depot."
The GAO also complained that Tooele personnel improperly performed work for the Defense Logistics Agency - such as loading empty, surplus bomb containers into buyers' trucks - in exchange for sending money to recreation funds that otherwise would have gone to industrial funds or the treasury.
The Tooele statement said the arrangement was made to allow the sale of the containers on-site, instead of using Tooele workers to move them even farther to a Defense Logistics Agency site for resale - and save overall labor by not moving items twice.
Of note, the GAO report also criticized Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, which is in direct competition with Hill Air Force base for survival in the 1995 round of base closures. Tooele's North Area was ordered closed by 1997 in this year's round.
Kelly and Hill house two of the Air Force's five Air Logistics Centers - and military planners said two of the five will likely soon be closed.
The audit said Kelly improperly received $1 million annually for recreation funds that should have gone to repair funds.