Millions spent on incinerators in Afghanistan that were never used

SIGAR: Millions spent on incinerators in Afghanistan that were never used
Stars and Stripes
Alex Pena
December 16, 2013

Troops and personnel at Forward Operating Base Sharana in Afghanistan resorted to hazardous open-air burn pits to dispose of waste after the U.S. Army spent $5.4 million on faulty incinerators that couldn’t be used, a government watchdog said in a report released Monday.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found that because of construction delays and safety issues with the facility’s electrical supply, the incinerators were unusable.

Open-air pits can pose serious health hazards to troops and personnel living in surrounding areas, the report said. Their continued use after a base of a certain size has been established is also in violation of a 2011 U.S. Central Command regulation, according to the report. That regulation says that once a base exceeds 100 personnel for more than 90 days — a threshold that FOB Sharana met — it must establish a plan for installing waste-disposal technologies such as incinerators.

“Nearly 3 years after the initial scheduled completion date for the incinerator facility at FOB Sharana, the incinerators have never been used,” the report said.

Despite known problems with the incinerators, SIGAR said, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accepted possession of them and paid the contractor, Denver-based International Home Finance and Development LLC, the full contract price $5.4 million.
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