US and French military bases in the Pacific are polluting the
environment with radioactive and toxic chemicals. The Nuclear Free and
Independent Pacific movement calls for the closure of all foreign bases
in the Pacific. But this survey around the region shows that the US and
French military must also take responsibility for clean-up and
compensation for their military-related toxic pollution. The practice by
Washington and Paris of dumping wastes in their Pacific colonies and
possessions is exposing islanders to serious environmental and health
hazards.
Wake Island
In early 2000, the US military shipped more than 110 tons of military waste contaminated with
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
from Japan. These wastes were collected from US military bases in Japan
and include surplus electrical transformers, circuit breakers and other
electrical equipment that contain traces of PCBs. These materials were
manufactured outside the United States and used by US military forces in
Japan. Under US law, a 1997 court ruling held that PCBs cannot be
imported into any territory of the United States governed by US Customs
Service rules.
PCBs are highly toxic carcinogenic chemical compounds whose
production has been banned worldwide. PCBs are listed as one of the
“dirty dozen” persistent organic pollutants (POPs) by the United Nations
Environmental Program for global elimination in an international treaty
presently being negotiated by over 100 governments.
The PCB wastes were originally shipped to Canada in March 2000, but
dockworkers and government officials in Vancouver refused to let the
Panamanian-registered ship
Wan He enter their city. The ship
carrying the wastes then tried to enter the US port of Seattle on 1
April. It was denied entry to mainland United States by local
authorities and returned to Yokohama, Japan in mid-April. The Japanese
government did not allow disposal in Japan and reached an agreement with
the US government to remove the waste from Japan within 30 days.
The US military considered shipping the waste to Guam, where the
United States maintains a number of military bases. But US law prohibits
the shipping of hazardous waste from a foreign source into the United
States, including all its territories. Guam’s Congressman Robert
Underwood and local Chamorro activists have spoken out against the use
of Guam for waste dumping, calling on the US military to clean up
existing PCB pollution in Guam and the Northern Marianas.
The US Department of Defence, in collaboration with the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), then made the decision to ship
the waste to Wake Island as the holding site until a decision is reached
on the final destination. Wake Island is a US possession outside the US
customs territory located about 3,700 kilometres west of Hawai‘i. The
island is used by the US military as a missile launch support facility
for the Ballistic Missile Defence program. There are about 100 contract
workers on the 3-square-mile island.
On 21 May, a spokesperson for the US Defence Logistics Agency stated
the waste will be stored on Wake Island for up to a year. She also said
there is no firm deadline for its removal (
Honolulu Advertiser,
22 May 2000). Workers on the island will take the shipping containers
that hold the PCB waste and bolt them to concrete slabs. The island sits
less than 3 metres above sea level.
In its editorial of 12 May, 2000, the
Honolulu Advertiser stated:
“What is it about the Defence Department that makes it want to store
hazardous waste on low-lying atolls? No matter how you slice it and no
matter which atoll you choose – and no matter which atoll you choose –
it’s a terrible idea. The Defence Logistics folks, in their wisdom, have
decided to dump the stuff on Wake Island instead. That’s Wake Island,
maximum elevation 12 feet, just as the hurricane season begins. It
doesn’t matter whether storm waves wash the PCBs from Johnston or Wake.
It’s the same ocean that will be contaminated. The Fish and Wildlife
Service objects to that choice, too, and so do we.”
Johnston Atoll
Kalama Island (Johnston Atoll) is an US-controlled island located
between Hawai’i and the Marshall Islands, about 700 miles south-west of
Honolulu. (Flights from Hawai’i to Majuro often stop at Johnston, but
non-military personnel are not allowed to leave the aircraft).
In April 2000, protests from around the region aborted early plans
for the PCB shipment from Japan to go to Johnston Atoll, and it ended up
at Wake. But Johnston Atoll, which hosts the Johnston Atoll Chemical
Agents Disposal System (JACADS), is already heavily polluted because of
US military activities.
The northern part of Johnston has a range of environmental pollution,
including plutonium contamination from failed nuclear tests in the
1960s (In October and November 1962, nine atmospheric nuclear tests were
conducted at Johnston Atoll including four tests at high altitude).
Johnston was also used after the Vietnam War for the storage of hundreds
of drums of Agent Orange. Many of these drums have leaked, polluting
the atoll environment with dioxin. Agent Orange was sprayed by American
planes during the war to destroy jungle, expose enemy bases and ruin
crops needed to feed the Vietnamese population. It has caused major
health problems among both Vietnamese citizens and Vietnam veterans from
the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
Since 1990, the US Army has been destroying chemical weapons at the
Johnston Atoll Chemical Agents Disposal System (JACADS) facility. After
the Cold War, the US government wanted to destroy chemical weapons
stored in Europe. These toxic chemical weapons, such as mustard gas and
nerve agents, threaten human life as well as the environment. In August
1985, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a ten-year
permit for the JACADS chemical incineration facility, allowing hazardous
waste storage and treatment. In 1990, the US government shipped rockets
and other weapons containing chemical agents from Germany to the
Pacific. Since June 1990, these weapons have been incinerated at high
temperatures at the JACADS facility, together with other weapons sent
from Okinawa and the Solomon Islands.
From the beginning, JACADS has been plagued by serious technical and
procedural problems that have threatened the Pacific environment and the
health and safety of workers at the facility. For nearly half its
scheduled operating time, the JACADS facility has been shut down –
sometimes for months. There have been four documented cases where nerve
agents have been released into the environment. On 14 March 1994, there
was a rocket explosion in the Explosive Containment Room at JACADS. On
two occasions when the atoll was threatened by hurricanes, the US
Commander on Johnston Atoll evacuated all civilian and military
personnel to Honolulu.
When a civilian group visited Johnston Island in April 1998
(including PCRC staff member Losena Salabula), JACADS Project Manager
Gary McKloskey indicated that the plan now is to close down the JACADS
facility by the year 2001, and convert it to a bird sanctuary!
Saipan and the Northern Marianas
In 1999, a cemetery at the coastal village of Tanapag in the Northern
Marianas was closed after PCBs were found leaking in the area.
The environmental problem in Tanapag began when ceramic capacitors
containing PCBs – including Arochlor 1254 and PCB oil – were shipped to
Saipan in the 1960s by the US Department of Defence. The capacitors were
manufactured by Cornell-Dublier Electronics as part of the US Defence
Department’s Nike-Zeus contract for its ballistic missile early warning
radar installation. The radar was originally stationed at Kwajalein
Atoll in the Marshall Islands, but moved in 1967 to the island of Saipan
in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI).
PCB contamination in Tanapag village began when capacitators dumped
in the village by the US military were used by local residents as
boundary markers, windbreaks for barbecue sites, roadblocks for
driveways and even headstones in the local cemetery. Some capacitors
were found open and their inner linings were used to decorate rooftops
and cemeteries in the village.
The CNMI government was only told about the capacitators in 1988 and
removed them to allow a clean-up to begin. But the US Army Corps of
Engineers failed to do a proper clean-up when the radar installation was
closed.
Now, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
(ATSDR) are collecting samples of soil, water, food and fish in Tanapag
as well as conducting health screening for villagers in an effort to
determine the extent of the contamination. In September 1999, the US
Army Corps of Engineers shipped some 1,094,000 pounds of PCB- and
dioxin-contaminated soil to the mainland for disposal at a hazardous
waste facility in the United States. However, piles of contaminated soil
are still left in the cemetery.
Authorities are testing about 3,000 people from Tanapag village for
cancer and other illnesses. This is the first time that the level of PCB
contamination among villagers has been assessed, after over ten years
of federal and local awareness of the contamination in Tanapag. Results
of the blood tests will be provided in about two months, after the
analysis is concluded in the US mainland. Health authorities in the
Northern Marianas say tests for cancer may have to be extended
throughout the Commonwealth.
PCB contamination is not the only environmental hazard facing CNMI
residents. In April 2000, the US EPA agreed to sample groundwater in the
Northern Marianas to check if it is contaminated with Agent Orange. The
sampling work will focus on wells located within a golf course in
northern Saipan. Containers of Agent Orange were buried on the island
after the Vietnam War and the US government wants to determine whether
the chemical has migrated into the groundwater.
Residents of Saipan have uncovered four other sites they believe are
abandoned dumping grounds used by the United States military. World War
II material has been found in Marpi, Capitol Hill, Upper San Roque and
Upper Tanapag. Tons of debris from military equipment can be found in
Upper Tanapag.
However the US Army Corps of Engineers says that the Upper Tanapag
site is not listed in the Department of Defence archives as a dumping
ground. Local officials believe there could be more such sites across
the island and on neighbouring Tinian, which was used as a military
airstrip during World War II.
More than 1,000 World War Two bombs have been found littering a
proposed housing development site in Saipan. Most of the bombs were
found near Suicide Cliff on the northern part of the island, piled
waist-high on top of one another. Although the US Naval Administration
combed Saipan for war debris – including mortar shells and hand grenades
– after the war, much remained buried across the island, especially at
sites of fierce battles between American and Japanese forces. These
include the coastal villages of San Antonio, San Jose, Oleai, Garapan
and Tanapag where the US forces landed, and Marpi, where the Japanese
forces held out at the height of the invasion.
Guam
Guam was a major US military base in the Second World War, the Korean
War and the Vietnam War, and today over one third of the island’s land
area is under the control of the US military. The US armed forces have
transported and stored vast quantities of war materials to Guam to
support their activities. Over the years, these materials included
nuclear weapons; chemical weapons such as phosgene and mustard gas;
cleaning compounds now proven to be hazardous to human health and the
environment; and insecticides and pesticides that are now banned as
being carcinogenic or dangerous to human health and the environment.
Unexploded munitions continue to be found around the island – these
are serious potential threats to human life and safety. The severity of
the threat is increased by the age of the unexploded munitions, as the
type of chemical used in Second World War explosives is known to become
unstable with age. The military has not made a concerted effort at
locating and disposing of these unexploded munitions and their discovery
today is often by accident during civilian construction projects.
A US nuclear submarine discharged radioactive reactor water in Apra
Harbour in the late 1980s, but the military did not inform the
Government of Guam of the discharge. The people of Guam only found out
about the discharge when it was published in a San Diego, California
newspaper. We can only conjecture how many other unreported discharges
happened in the past when Guam was a major base for the Polaris
missile-equipped nuclear submarines.
Guam, today, is a major site for environmental clean-up under the US
Super Fund program. The required clean-up is ongoing but the pace at
which it is being undertaken is not satisfactory for the indigenous
Chamorro people; especially as the promised return of former military
lands cannot occur until the land is deemed to be environmentally safe.
The major source for potable water for Guam is the northern aquifer.
This aquifer enjoys federal protection by being designated as a
sole-source aquifer for Guam. However, several of the production wells
have had to be shut down because of chemical contamination. It should be
noted that the bulk of the US government’s land holdings are over or
adjacent to this aquifer.
Since 1987, Chamorro organisations have been calling for the return
of land not actively being used for military purposes. However, instead
of returning the bases to their former customary landowners, the US
military has been transferring bases to other US federal agencies, such
as the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service. The US government has put 20%
of Guam property into a “wildlife refuge”, but they do not fund programs
to preserve the environment or endangered species on that land.
The Philippines
In the Philippines, community groups have formed the People’s Task
Force for Bases Clean-Up, to lobby for the clean-up of toxic pollution
at former US bases. Even with the closure of US installations at Subic
Bay and Clark Airforce Base after 1991, there are many ongoing hazards.
When the United States military pulled out of Clark and Subic, it left
dozens of sites where toxic chemicals and asbestos had been dumped or
buried in unsealed landfills.
The following are worst case scenarios of chemicals left in Clark and
Subic Bay. All of the toxins mentioned below have been found to exceed
World Health Organisation standards in soil and waters in and around
Clark and Subic.
Mercury has been detected in some of the sediments of Subic Bay.
There is a potential for health impacts to subsistence fishermen and
women from the accumulation of toxins in fish and other marine life
residing in Subic Bay waters. Mercury bioaccumulates in fish, and is a
toxic metal that can cause irreversible brain damage to infants. Mercury
has been known to cause birth defects such as severe cerebral palsy,
mental retardation, weakness, visual loss, delayed development,
spontaneous abortions, and neurological effects.
Toluene, Benzene, methyl ethyl ketone, xylene, and trichloroethylene
are several of the solvents left in the Clark Air Force base. Solvents
have been linked to increased risk of spontaneous abortions with
maternal exposure during pregnancy. There is increased likelihood of
central nervous system, heart urinary tract, lip, and palate birth
defects in children of solvent exposed women, increased risk of
preeclampsia, and damage to fertility and male reproductive functions.
Aldrin, dieldrin and PCBs, three of the 12 most hazardous persistent
organic pollutants (POPs), have been found at Clark. Some scientists are
linking POPs with falling sperm count, rising rates of testicular and
breast cancer, behavior disorders, immune system changes, and decreased
birth weight and brain development. Aldrin, Dieldrin, PCBs, and 1,1,2,2
tetrachlorine are suspected causes of cancer.
Benzene can cause Leukemia. Lead induces renal dysfunction, anemia,
and neonatal mortality, infertility in men and spontaneous abortions
with high doses of exposure, and developmental delay in children with
very low doses of exposure.
Sister Rosalie Bertell’s long awaited study “Health for All” revealed
that certain communities around Clark Air Force Base report
conspicuously and disparate levels of kidney, urinary, nervous, and
female system health problems. The highest prevalence of these problems
occurred in CABCOM, Margot, Macapagal, Sapang Bato, Poblacion, and San
Joaquin. These communities are located on the base or closest to highly
contaminated sites. Examples of problems presented are tremors, cramps,
spasms, frequent dizziness, frequent painful urination, irregular
menstruation and premenstrual syndrome.
Bertell found serious evidence of poor health of the children. She
found that weight and height of the older children were abnormally low,
despite adequate nutritional status. It is from these findings, that
Bertell suggested something abnormal is in the dust and water. With the
realization that people cannot buy or be provided bottled water
forever, Bertell called for comprehensive clean-up, a process which
would require people to be evacuated. Her final advisory was that Clark,
Margot, Sapang Bato, Macapagal, Poblacion and San Joaquin be given
clean-up priority, and permanent living conditions be found for CABCOM
residents.
In response to the release of the “Health for All” Survey, the mayors
of Mabalacat and Angeles City ordered the distribution of clean water
to ten barangays near the former air base. Mayor Marino Morales ordered
the immediate dispatch of safe drinking water to San Joaquin, Poblacion,
San Francisco, Mabiga, Dau, and Mawaque. Mayor Cornelio Lazatin of
Angeles City stated that the city would provide clean water to Sapang
Bato, Margot, Macapagal, and Marcos. However the city does not have the
equipment like water tanks and trucks, to provide potable water.
Through studies of hospitals in Olongapo City and Metro Manila it has
been found that Olongapo and Zambales (which are near the former Subic
Naval Base) have an alarming number of leukemia cases. Of the 385
leukemia patients between 1992 and 1996, 282 were below 18 years old. (
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 17 February 2000)
Many cases have been found in Kalaklan village. The People’s Task
Force for Bases Clean-Up learned from former base workers that Upper
Kalaklan used to be a dump.
The Santa Rita River cuts across Kalaklan village and drains into the
Subic Bay. An environmental baseline study for Subic collected 41
sediment samples from the bay’s harbor floor and various river and
drainage canals and analyzed these for a range of heavy metals and
organic compounds. Sediments from the bay showed that metals like
arsenic, barium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc exceeded the standard
levels. During high tide, water from the bay enters the Santa Rita
River.
Hao, Moruroa and Fangataufa
France’s presence in the South Pacific is well known because of its
nuclear testing program in French Polynesia. Between 1966 and 1996,
France conducted 193 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests at Moruroa and
Fangataufa atolls.
After the end of French nuclear testing, the French government has
started to relocate the military presence from Moruroa, Fangataufa and
Hao atolls. In 1996, the Nuclear Testing Centre (CEP) and French
military began to dismantle the bases at Moruroa and Fangataufa. Some of
the equipment and material was transferred to the armed forces, some
given to the Territorial government and some scrapped. Low-level
radioactive waste was buried in old test shafts, then covered in
concrete. A 1998 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report also
found that high-level radioactive waste, including plutonium, was dumped
into two shafts on Moruroa. The IAEA report estimates that there are 8
kilograms of plutonium in the sediments of the lagoons at Moruroa and
Fangataufa as a result of the nuclear tests. There is also evidence of
plutonium and caesium pollution on the northern rim of Moruroa.
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, a major priority for the armed
forces was the smooth functioning of France’s nuclear bases in
Polynesia. The bases had to be provisioned, and their equipment
maintained. For decades, Hao Atoll in the Tuamotu Islands served as a
staging post between France, Papeete and the nuclear sites at Moruroa
and Fangataufa Atolls. Its 3000-metre military airstrip is one of the
longest in the Pacific (it serves as an emergency landing site for
NASA’s space shuttle).
In January 2000, French authorities announced that the Foreign Legion
will be withdrawn from French Polynesia, and the military base at Hao
Atoll will be closed. The cost of maintaining the 350 men of the French
Foreign Legion 5th Regiment in French Polynesia amounts to nearly one
billion Pacific francs (55 million French francs). This money was being
deducted from the
Fond de conversion de la Polynésie (the
ten-year grant given to French Polynesia by President Chirac between
1997 – 2007 to lessen the blow from the end of nuclear testing in 1996).
The French government has been charging the territory for the cost of
monitoring the radioactive pollution left by three decades of nuclear
testing! Now the Territory will be responsible for funding 20 soldiers
of the RIMAP Regiment to monitor the former test sites, even though
France has refused to return the atolls to the control of the
Territorial government (see
Tahiti Pacifique, April 1999 and February 2000 for details).
Today, the Territorial Government of French Polynesia is trying to
turn Hao Atoll into a tax haven for foreign corporations.
An
advertisement in the April edition of
The Economist magazine
urges foreign corporations to invest in “a genuine tax haven in the
heart of the Pacific!” The ad states that Hao Atoll offers “exemption
from corporate taxes, exemption from registration and property taxes,
exemption from custom duties and no personal income tax”. It also
highlights the range of infrastructure left behind by the French
military forces: “communication satellite network; international airport
runway; wharf for deep sea ships; desalination unit; nautical base;
power plant; hospital”. Many of the 1700 Maohi inhabitants of Hao atoll
are facing unemployment with the closure of the military facilities –
the question remains: will they have their land returned to them, or
will it be handed as a tax free zone to a corporate entrepreneur?
What Can Be Done
On 30 May, the CNMI House of Representatives joined the protest
against dumping of toxic US military waste in the Pacific region as it
expressed concern over its environmental and health impact on the
islands. Members adopted a resolution during a special session calling
on the US government to properly dispose of these poisonous chemicals to
prevent pollution of the earth, particularly its oceans: “In solidarity
with our Pacific Island neighbours, and for the future of our
environment we feel that the US should properly clean and dispose of its
toxic waste rather than put it in our backyard”.
According to a US Congressional document dated March 1999, the US
military has PCB wastes stockpiled at bases around the world. If the
current shipment of waste from Japan remains on Wake Island, this will
open the floodgates to hundreds, if not thousands of tons of US military
wastes being dumped in the Pacific.
As part of our call for the closure of foreign military bases in the
Pacific, we must call on the US and French military to fulfil their
responsibility for clean-up and compensation for the health and
environmental impacts of military related pollution.
A Seattle-based environmental group, the Basel Action Network, says
existing mobile technology allows for the destruction of PCBs. A viable,
safe, on-site destruction technology is available, without the need to
burn the PCBs (incineration of the PCB waste will give rise to dioxin
and other toxic emissions). Rather than exporting and importing toxic
wastes, government authorities should be using appropriate, safe
waste-minimisation and destruction technologies.
There is a need for greater transparency by the military. They can
begin by opening the military archives so that local residents can
discover the source of past environmental and health hazards that affect
them today. In Tahiti, Church and non-government groups are now
campaigning for France to open its archives on the thirty years of
nuclear testing, to allow study of health and environmental impacts.
There is also a need for Pacific Island governments to sign and
ratify several international conventions aimed at controlling the
manufacture storage and disposal of toxic chemicals, both regionally and
around the world. The Basel Convention will enable the world to monitor
and control the trade of dangerous chemical waste, by giving importing
countries the option to choose which chemicals they want to receive and
turn away those that cannot be handled safely. There is a need to
develop policies for Prior Informed Consent in which importing countries
can decide whether they wish to receive future shipments of particular
chemicals.
References
Compiled from reports by: Rufo Lujan (Guam); Nuclear Free Philippines Coalition (Manila); The Saipan Tribune (Northern Marianas); Tahiti Pacifique (French Polynesia). Detailed references can be supplied by contacting PCRC.
Disclaimer
Please note that the views expressed in this article are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position
of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a
diversity of views and opinions on contentious topics in order to
identify common ground.
http://nautilus.org/apsnet/toxic-bases-in-the-pacific/ 
