The Anti-Manichaeist

As you may know, the U.S. Navy has used the eastern part of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a practice bombing range. This has caused some very serious contamination and there is now a proposal to measure whether the metal contamination has been caused by the Navy or may be natural to the island. Apparently, there is a strong concern that the study may be just a cover for the Navy to get out of the cost of clean up. To make sure that the study will be more accurate, people are asking for others to send emails/letters to Daniel Rodriguez, Rodriguez.Daniel@epa.gov, at the Environmental Protection Agency. This needs to be done by the 15th of June.

Here is the sample letter that I sent myself.

Dear Mr. Rodríguez:

I am writing because I am concerned that the proposed background investigation of soils at the former bombing range in eastern Vieques will lead to an incomplete and distorted understanding of the impact of more than 60 years of bombing by the Navy on the island. It is important that the study contribute to remedying the environmental and health impacts of the Navy’s actions. The federal government should not use poorly designed studies to dodge its responsibility for cleaning up what it polluted.

To determine the naturally occurring levels of metals and compounds in the soil or water of a place, one must choose “control” or reference sites for study that are not already significantly impacted by human activities that may have affected the amount of those metals or compounds. Only in this way can you accurately measure whether the levels of contamination found at a site suspected of contamination are the result of human activity.

I am aware that Vieques community representatives have for three years objected to the Navy’s use of locations in Vieques as control sites for establishing background levels in western Vieques. The same mistake should not be repeated in the east, which was much more heavily impacted by bombing, experimental munitions, missiles, small-arms firing, use of unconventional munitions such as depleted uranium and napalm, and the ordinary contamination of a military camp.

Navy photographs and archives, on which the proposed plan relies for determining what areas have been used in the past and should be investigated, are notoriously unreliable. For example, it is not known whether the Camp Garcia dump is 50 acres or 200 acres.

Contamination that is unique to explosives was detected in the civilian area of Vieques as early as 1978, demonstrating that air is a probable pathway of contamination on the island. Contaminants that were transported by air could migrate even further after they were deposited, in water. Through surface water flow or filtration, soluble compounds could end up far away from where they were originally found.

In light of these facts, the Navy must locate an adequate number of control sites, with geology similar to the impacted areas in eastern Vieques, which are sufficiently free of contaminants generated by the Navy so as to be acceptable as a reference point or control. There is no evidence that these sites exist in Vieques.

The Navy plan proposes to study only 29 sites in an impacted area of some 10,000 acres. Yet the selection of even these few sites shows that no set of sites in Vieques is apt for determining natural background levels. For example, the Navy proposes some reference sites only 100 yards away from known contaminated sites, or downstream or downhill from those sites.

The Navy also proposes that no sample be analyzed for the presence of explosives, insecticides or organic compounds, and that only a small number of sites be tested for semi-volatile organic compounds. Because neither explosives nor insecticides occur naturally, inclusion of these analyses would show whether or not the sample location has been affected by human activity. If it has, the location would be discarded as a control site.

The Navy also proposes that no sample be analyzed for the presence of explosives, insecticides or organic compounds, and that only 6 out of 58 sites be tested for semi-volatile organic compounds. Because neither explosives nor insecticides occur naturally, inclusion of these analyses will show whether or not the sample location has been affected by human activity. If it has, the location would be discarded as a control site.

I urge that the Navy’s proposed study on background levels of contaminants in the soil of Vieques be amended as follows:

* Relocate the sites that serve as reference or background control to locations on the main island of Puerto Rico that meet similar criteria for geology, geography, ecology and climate as Vieques.
* Independent of the location of the background reference samples, the study should gather data and analyze the presence of explosives, insecticides and volatile and semi volatile organic compounds.

Sincerely,

dlw

I’d hope that others would also join me in urging that the studies be amended. It is wrong for the US to abuse science to shirk its responsibility for the environmental damage that it has caused. This is the sort of poor int’l leadership that drives people from the two-thirds world to reject the radical nonviolent gospel message of Jesus that our missionaries testify to.

dlw