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MAKING CONTACT Transcript: #48-00 Toxic Trails: U.S. Military Bases and the Environment Phillip Babich: This week on Making Contact.... Robert Rabin: The metals found in high concentrations of present and explosives propellants, paints conventional and uranium bullets, napalm, chaff, flares and other paraphernalia used by the Navy in Vieques. Ipat Luna: It is an American problem. And it is an American problem wherever there are bases in the world. Phillip Babich: The U.S. military is one of the worst polluters in the world. On this program, we take a look at environmental contamination from U.S. military bases, and we hear from community activists trying to do something about it. I'm Phillip Babich -- your host this week on Making Contact -- an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. Since World War II the United States has used the island of Vieques, one of three Puerto Rican islands, for weapons storage and as a practice ground for live ammunitions bombing. Recently, the U.S. Navy has become the focus of investigations into skyrocketing cancer rates and environmental degradation on the island. Many people in Vieques and the rest of Puerto Rico have joined forces in non-violent protest demanding that the U.S. military stop bombing and leave. Making Contact's Shereen Meraji has more. Shereen Meraji: "Stop! No more bombs. Peace for Vieques," has been the rallying cry for the people of Vieques, an island municipality six miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. To most tourists Vieques is an island paradise complete with tropical heat, swaying palms and white sand beaches. But the Viequenses who live there tell another story. Theirs is a story of stolen land, environmental destruction and sickness at the hands of the United States military. The U.S. Navy has occupied two-thirds of this small twenty-one by five-mile island for sixty years. Their operations are located on both the eastern and western coasts of Vieques, leaving the center third for the people who reside there. The U.S. Navy uses Vieques' most fertile lands as an ammunition depot on the west coast and a bombing range on the east coast. Deborah Bermen Santana, a professor of Ethnic Studies at Mills College who supports the Puerto Rican struggle to stop the bombing in Vieques, says that not only is the U.S. military using Vieques as a bombing range, they are renting it out to other countries to test what is termed "non-conventional weaponry." Deborah Bermen Santana: The Navy does some bombing practices, training of its troops through aerial bombardment and ship's bombardment with conventional weapons, conventional explosive and non-explosive weapons. They have also done over the years training and experiments with their corporate contracts for what they call "non-conventional weapons." Non-conventional weapons...they've also advertised it as a place for other countries and other companies to experiment with their non-conventional weapons. "Non-conventional weapons" means biological, chemical and nuclear. We have evidence...and the Navy has admitted to some of it, but we believe there's been quite a bit more, that they've used shells tipped with uranium 238, which they sometimes call "depleted uranium." It's a misnomer. Uranium 238 is only depleted of uranium 235. Uranium 238 can be pulverized and can get into the air, which the winds will bring over into the civilian population of Vieques. And Vieques...even though the actual firing range is eight miles away from the population; you have prevailing trade winds constantly blowing from east to west. And I can tell you, as a person who's spent a lot of time there, it blows right into the heart of where the people live. Robert Rabin: Depleted uranium poses a serious threat to the health of the people of Vieques who've suffered already alarmingly high cancer case rates. Shereen Meraji: Robert Rabin, member of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, speaking to a group of community activists in November 2000. Robert Rabin: Scientific studies carried out over the past two years identified high concentrations of arsenic, barium, cadmium, zinc, cobalt, copper, tin, mercury and silver and lead. Aluminum, chromium, iron, manganese, nickel and vanadium concentrations were found in some areas. High concentrations of nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, hydrocarbons typical of diesel fuel and phosphates that are formed from bomb explosions or are present in other war artifacts were also found. The metals found in high concentrations of present and explosives, propellants, paints conventional and uranium bullets, napalm, chaff, flares and other paraphernalia used by the Navy in Vieques. Shereen Meraji: Viequenses link this toxic waste left over by the U.S. military maneuvers to the island's abnormally high cancer rate which is 27% higher than the rate for all of Puerto Rico. The mortality rate in Vieques is 34% higher. The eastern portion of the island where the live fire bombings were permitted until January 2000 has more craters per kilometer than the moon. According to Deborah Bermen Santana, the bombing has destroyed vital eco-systems on the island. Deborah Bermen Santana: This is an area of lagoons, which are very, very productive areas for the environment with corals, with sea grasses that are all three of the most...and mangroves...which are the four most productive environments for sea life in the world. All of them have seen severe damage as a result of Navy bombing. I had heard that before the Navy started their bombing, the elders in Vieques [would] say parts of the forest in that area were so thick that in the middle of the day you could be in the forest and it would be like it was night time. And much of that forest cover has been destroyed. There are areas where endangered species such as two different species of sea turtles--the giant turtles--lay their eggs. During most of the years of the bombing, in particular the last twenty years, they stopped coming. And last year, during the year that the disobedience camps were preventing training from resuming in that area, a big Leatherback turtle actually laid eggs for the first time. Shereen Meraji: These disobedience camps were part of an effort to stop the bombing in Vieques in 1999, when a group of local residents encamped on Navy property. The encampment began as a response to an incident where an F-18 Navy jet from the battleship the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy missed its target and launched a bomb that killed Puerto Rican civilian David Sanes and injured four others. The ensuing protests halted military operations for almost a year, until January of 2000, when President Bill Clinton and then Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Roseo signed an agreement. Robert Rabin, a Viequense and member of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, says that the presidential directives were agreed upon without considering the ultimate wish of most Viequenses to end military bombing and return the 23,000 acres of naval land to the people. Robert Rabin: The presidential directives signed by Clinton and the Governor on January 31st, without the slightest participation of the people of Vieques, gave the green light to the Navy to remove the protesters from the civil disobedience camps inside the bombing area and to re-initiate bombing shortly thereafter. The directives suggested the clean up and the return of 8,000 acres on the western end of the island and 15,000 acres on the eastern island to the people of Vieques. However, Congress recently passed a military appropriations bill that stipulates only 4,000 of the 23,000 acres controlled by the Navy might be returned to the people of Vieques. Without community participation in the process the Navy and the Puerto Rican government worked to return lands before carrying out the environmental clean-up. Shereen Meraji: In a November 2000 phone interview with Amy Goodman of the nationally syndicated radio program, Democracy Now, President Clinton addressed the issues of returning the U.S. military controlled land back to the Viequenses: President Clinton: The United States Navy has an agreement with the government of Puerto Rico, the representative of all the people of Puerto Rico, to turn back the western half of Vieques to Puerto Rico to not have any live fire bombing--there's no live fire bombing going on there--and to terminate all the training within a couple of years, during which time they have to find a new place to train. So this training that's going on now is subsequent to an agreement. Now the Republicans in Congress broke the agreement and instead of giving the western part of the island to Puerto Rico gave it to the Interior Department to manage. If I can't find a way to give that island--the western part of the island--back to the people of Puerto Rico and to honor the agreement that the government of Puerto Rico itself made with the support of the local leaders, including the Mayor of Vieques, then the people of Puerto Rico, I think, have a right to say the federal government broke its word, and the training has to stop right now. Shereen Meraji: But according to community activists, President Clinton's position falls short because it doesn't call for the immediate halt of all bombing on Vieques. Speaking through a translator, a Puerto Rican woman living in Vieques, who did not want to be identified, challenged President Clinton to come to Vieques and see how widespread the environmental damage is. Puerto Rican Woman: The American nation, the Marines, they're defending our country. But what are they doing? What kind of defense is this? What they are doing is killing, killing us slowly, little by little. The children are dying. We are sick. I have cancer. I have dermatitis. I lost all my hair. Then what kind of defense is this; what kind of national defense is this? I'm begging the President of the United States, who doesn't live here in Vieques, to come on a vacation to Vieques to feel our suffering, to see our children, our friends, getting sick little by little decaying, getting hair samples to show that this is not a lie. This is legal? This is real? Go away and leave us alone! Shereen Meraji: For Making Contact, I'm Shereen Marisol Meraji. Phillip Babich: You're listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. If you want more information about this broadcast, we'll be giving out our toll free number at the end of this program. U.S. Congressional reports have found that the U.S. military is responsible for producing significant environmental contamination at all their major domestic and foreign bases. In the Philippines, the U.S. had operated 22 military bases until the early 1990s. Residents there contend that the U.S. military should take responsibility for cleaning up its toxic waste. But, the U.S. government insists it has no clean-up obligations. Making Contact's Orla Rapple has more: Orla Rapple: The United States and the Philippines have had a long and arduous relationship. In 1902, the Philippines became a colony of the U.S. when the four year Philippine-American War came to an end and the United States took the country over from Spain. In 1947, the United States military's presence was formalized with a U.S.-R.P. military bases agreement, which provided the Americans with the rent-free 99 year lease in the Philippines. Of the 22 U.S. military bases in the country, the largest were Subic Naval Facility and Clark Air Force Base, once the largest military base outside the continental United States. In 1991, the Philippine Senate voted to close down the bases and the Untied States had to leave. However, what they left behind was a legacy of toxic pollution caused by almost 100 years of military activities. Jorge Emmanuel is an environmental consultant based in Rodeo, California: Dr. Jorge Emmanuel: The reason for much of the contamination can be found in internal Department of Defense documents that were released in 1993. And those documents revealed that the U.S. military had contaminated the soil, the ground water in various ways. One was through direct dumping of toxic material right into the land and into the water ways; another was because of accidents where the United States...the military had, for example, major spills of fuel and oils, of PCBs, of polychlorinated biphenyls, accidental spills many of which were never cleaned up at all or the few that were cleaned up were never cleaned up completely. Orla Rapple: Two months before the United States planned to abandon the military bases, Mount Pinatubo, just four miles west of Clark Air Force Base, erupted after 600 years of dormancy. The indigenous locals believed that the volcano was angry with the Americans for exploiting its resources. The eruption accelerated the U.S. military's departure. And communities living at the base of the volcano were relocated to empty army barracks and makeshift huts of Clark Air Force Base Command, an area called CABCOM. Soon the 20,000 families that were evacuated to CABCOM became aware that their environment was not as clean as their former residence. Filipino Voices: Every morning, it seemed like the water had cooking oil in it. This is the water we used to drink. Orla Rapple: Before long, the residents of CABCOM began to report a number of complaints from vomiting and diarrhea to respiratory problems and a high rate of miscarriages. In 1992, with the funding from the United Nations Development Program, Dr. Jorge Emmanuel led a team of Filipino scientists on a preliminary investigation of the bases. Dr. Emmanuel: Dr. Jorge Emmanuel: What I did is I actually took samples outside in the perimeter of the bases, and I found out, for example, significant concentrations of metals and so on that were accumulating in shellfish, because people were eating shellfish from a small channel. And it so happened that that channel was also where much of both the runoff from the base, the runoff and the dumping, would actually lead out both into this channel as well as out into the ocean. And so, that's one of the things I found. I also followed this 42 mile pipeline that connects Subic and Clark for the purpose of transporting fuel. And I found a number of areas around the pipeline, which had leaks. And one of those areas which I then tested and found high concentrations of benzene, which as you know is a carcinogen, and other organic compounds, just happened to be within that spill area was about twenty yards away, I'd say, from a rice field and maybe about ten yards away from the community well. Orla Rapple: In 1996, the People's Task Force for Bases Clean-up in the Philippines enlisted the help of Rosalie Bertell, an epidemiologist from the Canadian Institute for the Concern of Public Health. She carried out a two-year study of the area surrounding Clark. The study, entitled "Health for All," had some startling results. Dr. Rosalie Bertell: Dr. Rosalie Bertell: What we did was divide the people living on the base into about twelve different communities. And we did a comparison of their health for different systems like respiratory system, urinary tract, heart and so on. And what really stood out in the data was that the people with the sicknesses, like kidney disease, were located in areas we later found out were the toxic waste dumps. So we did the health profile without looking at the engineering report. And after we got the engineering report, we could see that just looking at health we had picked out the two toxic waste dumps, the motor repair area, which was known to be very contaminated, and the overcrowding condition which was the CABCOM temporary residence. Crizel Jane Valencia: My name is Crizel Jane Valencia. Aimee Suzara: Crizel Jane Valencia was a six-year-old girl who had leukemia. Orla Rapple: Aimee Suzara is the outreach coordinator for FACES or the Filipino-American Coalition for Environmental Solutions. She visited Clark Air Force Base in 1999, where she interviewed people living at Madapdap in the resettlement area for communities who had lived at CABCOM. While there she stayed with the Valencia family whose daughter Crizel had been diagnosed with acute malasidic leukemia, a form of cancer that usually affects adults. Aimee Suzara: Basically I lived with her and got to experience, well, 'got to,' had to experience with her the processes of dealing with this illness in a family that doesn't have any money. Orla Rapple: Amy documented the illnesses of other children and adults who had lived at CABCOM. Their ailments ranged from nervous system disorders to congenital heart disease. Aimee Suzara: The people we selected for me to visit were those whose illnesses appeared after they moved to Clark. All of these people had various kinds of illnesses. A lot of them were children who couldn't speak or eat hard foods or walk. Some had leukemia, deformities. Women had like ovarian cysts and things like that, had miscarriages. Orla Rapple: Despite the documentation of these illnesses and their causes, the U.S. Government insists they are not responsible for the clean-up of these bases. Citing that under the U.S.-R.P. military bases agreement, the U.S. has "...no legal obligation to restore the former bases to their original condition." Ipat Luna: It is an American problem. And it is an American problem wherever there are bases in the world. Orla Rapple: Ipat Luna is the program director of PUSOD, a center for environment, arts and culture based in California that focuses on Philippine issues. Ipat Luna: I think there is an economic and political reason. And they justify that by using legal reasons, at least as far as they can argue. And economic, because it would take a lot of money to clean up; political, because they would only clean up if they feel a certain amount of pressure from communities here as well as abroad: international pressure, domestic pressure. And that's probably what is needed to make the U.S. face up to its accountability and responsibility for this mess. Orla Rapple: On February 24, 2000, Crisel Jane Valencia boarded Greenpeace's ship, the Rainbow Warrior, with other sick children from the Clark Air Force Base in order to attend the celebration of a book release about toxic waste. Although Crizel's health was fading, she insisted on attending the celebration. It was her first time to see the sea. In the evening, she told her mother she was tired and lay down to sleep. She died shortly afterwards. She was six years old. Ipat Luna: Everything that the U.S. Constitution and all the U.S. documents about social justice and equity would mean nothing if the simple act of compensation and clean-up is not done for members of the same species, for fellow humans. Orla Rapple: For Making Contact, I'm Orla Rapple. Phillip Babich: With the end of full-scale nuclear war-head test explosions in 1992, the U.S. Department of Energy, or D.O.E., looked for other ways to maintain and upgrade the nation's nuclear bombs. Proposals included simply guarding them as they aged, or non-nuclear tests of the plutonium cores. But the D.O.E. has settled on a plan called "Stockpile Stewardship," a massive program of physics experiments and computing programs to maintain full weapons-design capabilities without full-scale testing. Peace and environmental groups filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to stop "Stockpile Stewardship." But, they did force the government to own up to the toxic waste its nuclear weapons testing and production create. Correspondent Ed Rippy has more: Ed Rippy: In the early 1990s, as a result of a lawsuit field by 39 peace and environmental groups, the D.O.E. agreed to produce environmental impact reviews for cleaning up the waste from its old program as well as the proposed "Stockpile Stewardship" program. In the late 1990s, the D.O.E. released an environmental impact review of "Stockpile Stewardship" but no review of the old waste. Mike Veilluva is counsel to Western States Legal Foundation, one of 39 plaintiffs in the suit. He says the D.O.E. never considered any testing and maintenance alternatives to the "Stockpile Stewardship" program. Mike Veilluva: The environmental impacts associated with these different alternatives were quite varied. And the organizations which were involved in the process of reviewing and commenting on the environmental impacts of "Stockpile Stewardship" immediately felt that the Department of Energy was not doing any kind of adequate job to consider the alternatives to what it had planned to do. Ed Rippy: Those alternatives included simply guarding the bombs as they age and randomly testing the plutonium cores. The plaintiffs went to the federal judge who had originally heard the case. He warned the D.O.E. that if they didn't settle with the plaintiffs, he would hold them in contempt of court. Faced with this threat, the D.O.E. agreed to build a database on the Internet open to the public, containing information about the agency's hazardous waste. It also agreed to do an environmental analysis of D.O.E. facilities, which, according to the National Academy of Sciences, are so toxic that they will take millennia to clean up. The D.O.E.'s long-term Stewardship program deals with these facilities. Marylia Kelly is executive director of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a watchdog group in Livermore, California. She says a close look at the long-term Stewardship program reveals how bad things really are. Marylia Kelly: Long-term Stewardship is an acknowledgment that there are radioactive and chemical contaminants around these bomb plants that the D.O.E. has no idea how to clean up and that there will be residual contamination for decades and in some cases hundreds and thousands of years. And long-term Stewardship is a demand that D.O.E. come up with a plan to deal with that fact. Ed Rippy: As the final part of this settlement, the D.O.E. is putting up over $6 million to help people decipher the environmental data, produce reports and provide them to the media. The money will provide grants to community groups and federally recognized Native American tribes to pay for independent technical experts who will examine the hazardous waste data. Again, Marylia Kelly: Marylia Kelly: The settlement fund will be utilized by tribes and organizations all across the country to help communities watchdog the nuclear weapons complex and to help communities advocate for positive change. The Department of Energy is still polluting the environment here at Livermore and at every other facility in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. And there is a tremendous need for a strong, engaged community and national organizations. Ed Rippy: The lead counsel in the suit was from the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC. NRDC's Christopher Paine says the Clinton administration mounted an all-out effort to oppose the suit with depositions and affidavits from the U.S. Departments of Energy and State. The judge ruled that an environmental impact review of "Stockpile Stewardship" would delay the program and undermine U.S. national security. But Paine says the D.O.E. downplays its pollution and is often deceived by its contractors. Christopher Paine: For example, one of the groups that has been involved with this fund recently, as a result of their own studies, informed the Department of Energy that the D.O.E. had mis-estimated the amount of plutonium and waste by a factor of ten. In other words, a factor of ten larger than it had previously assumed. And just the other day, I saw in the newspaper that indeed the Department of Energy agreed with this organization. Ed Rippy: The Department of Energy declined to comment on the settlement. The plaintiffs want communities of color, especially, to know about the grant money since they often bear the brunt of the pollution and are least able to protect themselves. The plaintiffs selected a group named RESOLVE to administer the grants. Again Mike Veilluva, counsel for Western States Legal Foundation: Mike Veilluva: The Internet database is still in the process of being created by the Department of Energy and so certainly whatever pressure they can bring to bear on the field offices and D.O.E.'s home office to push this process along would be welcomed. Secondly, my recommendation would be that they contact--what I call site specific groups-- the local organizations in their particular area who are working on these projects andwhich have been either contacted by RESOLVE or other groups and link with those existing organizations to find out what can be done with respect to perhaps the creation of a technical grant or to access the information which is currently being generated. Ed Rippy: For Making Contact, this is Ed Rippy. Phillip Babich: That's it for this edition of Making Contact, a look at U.S. military bases and environmental contamination. Thanks for listening. And special thanks this week to Aimee Suzara, Carlos Corea and Amy Goodman for recorded portions. We also had translation and voice over assistance from Howie Severino and Laura Livoti. Laura Livoti is our managing director. Peggy Law, executive director. Associate producer, Stephanie Welch. Senior advisor, Norman Solomon. National producer, David Barsamian. Women's desk coordinator, Lisa Rudman. Prison desk coordinator, Eli Rosenblatt. Production assistant, Shereen Meraji. And I'm your host and managing producer Phillip Babich. If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts. That's 800-529-5736. You can also go to our website at www.radioproject.org. That's www.radioproject.org. Making Contact is an independent production. We're committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. If you have suggestions for future programs, we'd like to hear from you. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter trio. Bye for now. |