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Worldwide, the military is the most secretive, shielded and privileged of polluters because the hallowed mantra, national security, trumps the public's right to know. Thus, most of the extant data on pollution from US-military-related sites is available solely because of citizen pressure on the Department of Defense (DoD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Congress to inventory, assess, and divulge the extent of the
military's environmentally hazardous activities. Citizen awareness and demands for disclosure of military site pollution grew during the 1980's, in the heyday of the new hazardous waste laws, which set standards for storing, transporting, and disposal of solid and hazardous waste as defined in the statutes - namely, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA 1976) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), which initiated the Superfund program in 1980.