The EPA would typically sue private employers that refuse to sign cleanup orders. But the EPA would not take such action against the Pentagon, she said, because that would be tantamount to the government suing itself.
The Pentagon's refusal to sign the order and the EPA's move to add Fort Detrick to the Superfund list were reported yesterday by The Washington Post.
Fort Meade has been on the Superfund list since 1998 for numerous contamination sites that include landfills, shooting ranges, ammunition dumps and hundreds of buried drums of petroleum and other pollutants.
The contaminants - such as heavy metals, pesticides, explosives and arsenic - have polluted soil and groundwater, according to EPA reports.
Tests have periodically revealed traces of contaminants in the well water of some families who live near the post.
At stake in the current dispute is the extent to which cleanup efforts at military installations such as Fort Meade and Fort Detrick will be subject to EPA review.
"The EPA is the expert agency charged by Congress with enforcing our environmental laws, and the Administration needs to allow them to do their job to protect the public health and safety," Rep. John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who heads the Senate Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in a statement yesterday.
"As the nation's largest polluter, the Defense Department must comply with our toxic waste laws in the same manner as private individuals or companies. In this case we have DOD seeking to self-regulate, contrary to the law and the clear intent of Congress."
Davis said that the Pentagon has signed EPA orders for other sites and that it is open to working out an agreement for Fort Meade, but it disagrees with the agency over specific details, such as the areas to be cleaned up.
Pentagon officials say there is no danger to the drinking water at Fort Detrick and Fort Meade.
Smith, the EPA spokeswoman, was quoted in the Post as saying the order last year was issued because the EPA worried about drinking water and soil contamination at Fort Meade, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. She declined to confirm that statement yesterday.
In August 2007, the EPA issued an order that the Army clean up 17 hazardous-waste sites at Fort Meade and the nearby Patuxent Research Refuge, part of the continuing $100 million cleanup at Fort Meade.
