Clean Vieques [Opinion-Editorial] By Matt Kapko News Editor The Lumberjack February 11, 2004 Sometimes, even after American soldiers leave a place, destruction and disease continue to occur because of them. And sometimes the place they leave is not even some distant land, but rather a place close to home, in fact a part of the United States. This sometimes is happening all the time in Vieques and many people are dying because of it. This small island off the eastern shore of Puerto Rico’s main island was, until recently, home to U.S. Navy war games for more than 60 years. When the Navy closed its base in May last year it left behind a cocktail of devastating chemicals it dispersed throughout the island’s Caribbean setting. The environmental contamination is something often overlooked and, so far, ignored by the U.S. government. Instead of returning the more than two-thirds of the island that the Navy expropriated from the Viequenses – squeezing them into the center, surrounded by a Naval base – it has turned the land over to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife to do an environmental assessment. Some Puerto Rican estimates put the environmental clean-up costs at $400 million, while the Navy still hasn’t released its findings. However, a scientific study done by the Navy in the ‘80s found that sources of drinking water in Vieques Isabel Segunda village and Barrio Esperanza were polluted with toxic chemicals such as TNT, tetryl and RDX. Further, an air and soil sampling done by the Environmental Protection Agency as early as the ‘70s concluded that the air in Vieques had “unhealthy levels of particulate matter” and the ground had “iron levels above normal.” These chemical weapons are still ravaging and ruining the Viequenses health. Nothing else could explain the children that are being born with extra nipples and other deformities. When a five-year-old dies of toxic contamination, a teenager dies from brain tumors, and most women on the island have hysterectomies before they turn 24 due entirely to the U.S. government’s war fantasies; there is much to be ashamed of. I am ashamed as a human being for what has been done to these people. And as an American, I am even more ashamed. We should all be ashamed! The rate of cancer in Vieques is in some cases 400 percent higher than that of the rest of Puerto Rico, and at minimum double the rate. Go to www.viequesparadiselost.com and see for yourself the utter disregard the U.S. Navy had for the Viequenses. In the film at that site, a man who worked for the Navy tells how little attention was paid to his health. Although the Navy was using numerous chemicals in close proximity to these workers, they never even provided them with breathing masks, he said. He now suffers from constant pain and rare forms of cancer as his nightly bouts with insomnia remind him of the Navy’s careless actions. The time has come for the Navy to clean up the havoc it unleashed on the fragile ecological balance in Vieques and to ensure the health care of those who it delivered cancerous toxins to. When Congress and the Bush Administration find it necessary to take our nation into debt for a war based on lies to ensure the health and well being of Iraqis, why can’t they extend that same aid to American citizens living on Vieques? Billions of dollars will be spent on Iraqis health and safety, while the health of Americans just 1,000 miles from the U.S. mainland is largely being ignored. I don’t wish to quantify the value of one life over another; no one life is worth more than another. However, I do find it ridiculous that our government can’t find the resources to ensure the well being of Americans and those living in the United States. After all, if there ever was a purpose for governments, it would be exactly that. Home