The Long Struggle for Cleanup

By John Lindsay-Poland

Puerto Rican Governor Sila Calderón formally petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to declare former Navy lands on Vieques and Culebra islands as a “Superfund” site on the National Priorities List on June 13, putting in motion long-term obligations for the Navy to clean up the lands. Inclusion on the National Priorities List (NPL) requires the polluter to investigate and remove threats to human health or the environment.

Acting EPA administrator Linda Fisher wrote Calderon on July 11 that the agency expected to recommend NPL listing by mid-August. But even though EPA officials say that the Vieques cleanup is a high priority, the Superfund cleanup process is likely to take many years.

José Adams speaks of his young daughter Milivy, who died of cancer in December 2002 at the age of 4. Adams spoke at a Vieques press conference in Washington on July 24 with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Both Vieques and Culebra islands were used as bombing ranges by the Navy. The Navy closed the range on Culebra in 1975 after extended protests, and intensified bombing in Vieques. The Navy considered the two islands to be part of one training complex.

Actual cleanup requires site investigations to positively show that there is contamination at a specific site with a sub-stantial risk of harming human health or the environment. The EPA ordered the Navy three years ago to investigate 12 sites in eastern Vieques (none of them inside the bombing range), most of them for industrial-type contamination, and the studies have yet to begin. But the speed of the bureaucratic process is less critical than getting the Navy to actually do field work to a standard that is acceptable to the community and to regulators.

Meanwhile, in western Vieques, where the Navy stored munitions, an attempt by the Navy to declare nine sites as clean and so requiring “No Further Action” has been delayed by Puerto Rico’s Environmental Quality Board (EQB), which plans to hold hearings about the sites.

The EPA and EQB are doing battle with the Navy over technical issues, through comments on documents presented by the Navy. Both agencies say the Navy has presented its information in confusing ways that make evaluating risks difficult or impossible. At this point, EQB has effectively put a brake on the Navy’s attempt to do no cleanup and sign off on nine sites. Of these sites, even the Navy’s studies conclude that there are “unacceptable human health risks” in five of the areas, including groundwater throughout the Main Operations Area and several specific sites.

Natural Contamination?

But the Navy claims that, even at the sites where there is unacceptable risk to human health, the contamination is part of the background – that is, that it is a natural part of the island’s geology. This argument over "background levels" is fundamental to the whole cleanup process. If the EPA and Puerto Rico accept the Navy’s claim that contamination on the island was not caused by the history of military activities, then they won’t have to clean it up.

EQB and EPA have not yet accepted the Navy’s argument that high-risk contamination on the western end are part of the island’s natural background levels, and so they’ve prevented the Navy from washing its hands and walking away from those sites. But neither have the agencies proactively ordered the Navy to use some other standard for background levels of contaminants, such as the background levels on other Caribbean islands.

Some Navy environmental studies of Vieques seem to exist in an historical vacuum. “The Navy has used Vieques Island since the 1940s, yet the [report] did not present or reference any studies of archives, records, reference sources or interviews conducted to document past site activities,” wrote EQB. “This information is essential to evaluate whether the site surveying and testing performed by the Navy is adequate, especially with regard to munitions handling and storage.”

And even though the contamination on the western end is not as serious as in the East, many people believe that whatever occurs in the West is a warm-up for how clean-up happens – or doesn’t happen – on the eastern end.

Others are approaching federal funding for Vieques from a different direction. A Mississippi law firm representing more than 6,000 Vieques residents is seeking billions of dollars to compensate islanders for damage to their health and property. All 20 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus wrote to acting Navy Secretary Hansford Johnson on July 24 to urge the government to compensate viequenses.

Local people welcomed the initiative, but said it should not get in the way of legislation for environmental cleanup or health services for the whole community. “We have to see how to link this to the rest of the demands” for cleanup, return of lands, and community development, Vieques leader Ismael Guadalupe said.

Where is Congress?

A Senate report accompanying the Defense Authorization bill also includes recommendations for the Vieques cleanup, unless it is changed in a House-Senate conference committee in September. The language on Vieques says very little that is not already part of law, and what it does say leaves the Navy room to delay and postpone fulfillment of its obligations to clean up.

For example, the report says that development of a comprehensive conversation plan for eastern Vieques by Fish & Wildlife Service will take “the next few years,” and that “until that process is complete, it will be difficult to reach final decisions on cleanup.” Of course, another way to look at it is that final cleanup decisions should not be made anyway based on eastern Vieques' current status as a wildlife refuge, since ultimately the land should be returned to Vieques and its planned uses are likely to more extensive than a federal refuge allows.

Costs of Cleanup Elusive

No one yet knows how much the cleanup of lands in eastern Vieques will actually cost or how long it will take, for several reasons. First, there is no complete knowledge of all the kinds and extent of contamination, nor of how heavy metals migrate into the island’s residential areas. There is not even an adequate map of the island’s water aquifers. Also, no decisions have been made about the methods that will be used to clean up.

Finally, there is no agreed standard for cleanup of explosives on firing ranges, as there is with other kinds of contamination. This makes cleanup of former ranges a constant push-and-pull between communities who want a higher standard to protect their health and safety and a military that wants to cut costs. The Navy, under EPA oversight, will carry out an evaluation of risk to human health, and that evaluation will be based on assumptions about what kind of public uses the lands and waters will have. Current law requires most of the former Navy lands to be managed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service as a wildlife refuge, but Puerto Rican activists have pledged to seek the return of the lands to Vieques, which could change the land uses.

In short, it’s premature to say how much cleanup will cost. Still, you can get an idea of costs by looking at other former bombing ranges or military bases that have been declared Superfund sites. Fort Ord in California was a 27,827-acre Army base, with an 8,000-acre firing range. It was listed as a Superfund site in 1990, before it closed. Besides explosives, there is also chemical contamination of groundwater. Plans for the base are for mixed uses. It took three years after closure before a cleanup engineering study was issued, and ten years after the base closed, the Army estimates that cleanup will take 15 more years, at current spending levels. The total cleanup bill is expected to top $500 million.

Some former bombing ranges are not Superfund sites. At Massachusetts Military Reservation, the EPA ordered a cessation of Army training because of contamination of drinking water supplies, and then ordered an extensive cleanup that is expected to cost over $700 million. At all these places, citizen activism has been critical to getting the government to clean up the mess the military has generated in preparation for war.

Sources: El Nuevo Dìa, 7/27/03; www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/npl.htm