Cheap, easy and unhealthy

The burn pit was a longtime military way of disposing of the mounds of trash generated by any sizable unit or base. As the health hazards to locals and troops began to be recognized the military began to switch to incinerators for this purpose. Their installation in Afghanistan has turned out to be just another chance for monumental waste, this time involving waste.

By 2011, the Department of Defense (DOD) began using other methods, including installing incinerators at some of the military bases. In its latest report on U.S. government spending in Afghanistan, a government watchdog has found that the U.S. military spent over $80 million on incinerators, but at least $20 million of that money was wasted because four bases never used the machines.

The Special Inspector General of Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR] reported Thursday that 23 incinerators were built at nine U.S. military bases across Afghanistan since 2011 at a cost of $81.9 million.

The incinerators, along with landfill operations, were meant to replace the open-air burn pits, but because of inadequate planning, design and construction, four installations costing $20.1 million were never operational.

The DOD paid the contractors for all the incinerators in full.

One forward-operating base installed two incinerators that were meant to work 24 hours a day, SIGAR noted. But the base was in a “blackout” area, meaning it couldn't operate anything at night so as not to attract rocket fire. The designation limited the base’s ability to incinerate waste to 60 percent of its daily production.

"Further, given the estimated cost to operate and maintain the incinerators — $1 million annually — the base commander decided to continue using the open-air burn pits to dispose of the base's solid waste," SIGAR found.

In a December 2013 inspection of another installation, SIGAR found that two incinerators were so close together it was too narrow for forklifts to load waste, meaning it had to be done manually. Ramps leading to the ash were inaccessible for transportation equipment. The repairs would have cost about $1 million, so officials chose not to do so, and went back to using open-air burn pits.

In its response to SIGAR's report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) disputed that some of the incinerators weren't working properly. "The incinerators were constructed in accordance with contract technical specifications with the exception of some open punch list items," which the USACE described as "minor deficiencies that should not have delayed transfer of the incinerators."

There is also the coming prospect of the U.S. military winding down its presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. military noted, another reason not to repair the faults.

It's nice to know the contractors were paid in full. Wouldn't want them avoiding fat government contracts in the future. Just bad luck about the ones we didn't use but, well, it's time to go.