Pollutants such as heavy metals and explosives originating from the military operational ranges can be migrated to adjacent surface water body or offsite soil, and can affect to local residents and aquatic ecosystem. Therefore, Korea Ministry of the National Defense has established various guidelines for environmental management including the installation of pollutant migration prevention facilities (PMPFs) and monitoring methodologies for heavy metals in the operational range soil and effluent and sediment of PMPFs. However, current guidelines neither address the explosive compounds such as 2, 4, 6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) nor suggest detailed environmental investigation protocol. This paper introduces the new “Environmental Management Manual for Military Firing Ranges”, which includes the environmental criteria for explosives as well as the detailed investigation protocol for the affected environmental media including soil, effluent and sediment of PMPFs.

Keywords: Explosives;Military firing ranges;Environmental management;Risk assessment;