Tag: Environmental Justice

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Hawai’i island residents blast Army expansion at Pohakuloa

The Hawaii Tribune Herald reports that more than fifty people turned out to testify against the Army’s proposed expansion of training facilities at Pohakuloa.

“We don’t want any further militarization of our island,” Bunny Smith said.

According the Hawaii Tribune Herald,

The next step is to come up with the (cost) numbers to construct,” Egami said of the modernization of training infrastructure and the construction and operation of a battle area within the 132,000-acre military facility.

Meeting the 25th Infantry Division’s training requirements will necessitate constructing a 200-acre Infantry Platoon Battle Area, according to the DEIS. Included will be a simulated battle course consisting of a live-fire shoothouse and a building like those found in urban warfare.

Also, the Army wants to construct various buildings for munitions storage, vehicle maintenance and administrative use. Those and related facilities would be built outside the 200-acre battle area.

Testimony was colorful and passionate:

Hawaii needs “houses of justice and peace” rather than military shoothouses, said peace activist Jim Albertini of the Malu ‘Aina Center for Nonviolent Education and Action.

“We want the U.S. to stop bombing Hawaii,” he said.

In directly addressing Army Col. Douglas Mulbury, commander of the Army Garrison Hawaii, Moanikeala Akaka said the military will have to pay tens of millions of dollars to remove World War II-era bombs like one found recently at Hapuna Beach State Park.

“You know, it’s hard to have respect for your institution when you ignore and so callously treat our homeland,” she said.

“We say no expansion; do it somewhere else,” Akaka shouted, generating applause from the audience.

Claiming the military is in Hawaii illegally, Cory Harden of the Sierra Club questioned whether the firing will dislodge depleted uranium found at PTA, triggering fires like those that have occurred at the Army’s Makua site on Oahu, or pose other public health risks.

“You’ve got to wonder what hazards are lurking out there. Apparently, nobody knows,” she said.

 

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Army engineers tackle toxic cleanup at Puunene, Maui

The AP reports “Army engineers tackle toxic cleanup at Puunene, Maui”:

The Army Corps of Engineers is looking to remove toxic chemicals found in a military landfill at the old Puunene airport site on Maui.

A spokesman for the Corps of Engineers Honolulu District said studies have found toxic and possibly carcinogenic chemicals in the 6.5-acre Maui Airport Landfill, the Maui News reported.

The Army Corps says the chemicals are not a threat to the groundwater.  The military  used the airport from the late 1930s to the early 1950s.  The Army Corps held a public informational meeting on the proposal to clean up the landfill November 9th.

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Action Alert: Keep Waianae Country! Stop industrial encroachment on agricultural land!

Developers want to change agricultural land to industrial in the heart of Lualualei valley in Wai’anae, some of the richest and most productive farm lands in Hawai’i.

The Waianae Sustainable Communities Plan is coming before the City Council on Nov. 2nd (1pm, Kapolei Hale).

1. Please send letters to the council members through this link sponsored by KAHEA.

2. Come to the hearing to testify in person and/or show support with signs etc. See instructions below on how to testify.

3. Send in written testimony online at this link.

The key issue is to remove the “purple spot” (agricultural land rezoned to industrial) from the Waianae Sustainable Communities Plan.  Waianae and Ewa residents should also contact Tom Berg with your concerns. As the Council Member for the district, his position will be influential.

CITY COUNCIL

PUBLIC HEARING

  DATE: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011
  PLACE: KAPOLEI HALE

CONFERENCE ROOMS A, B, C

1000 ULUOHIA STREET

KAPOLEI, HAWAII  96707
  TIME: 1 P.M.
     
 
Bill 50, CD1 (Exhibit A) – Amending the Waianae Sustainable Communities Plan.  (Amending Chapter 24, Article 9, Revised Ordinances of Honolulu and replacing the Waianae Sustainable Communities Plan.)
     
 
Bill 54 – Relating to stored property.  Establishing a procedure for the removal and disposal of personal property stored on public property.)
     

SPEAKER REGISTRATION

¨         Prior to the Day of the Meeting

Persons wishing to testify on the above-mentioned public hearing items may register by:

a.    using the On‑Line City Council Speaker Registration form available at http://www.honolulu.gov/council/attnspkph.htm;

b.    sending a fax to 768-3826 indicating your desire to register to speak, along with your name, phone number and subject matter;

c.    filling out the registration form in person; or

d.    calling 768-3814.

¨         On-site on the Day of the Meeting

Registration on-site for the above-mentioned public hearing items will be from 7:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Persons who have not registered to testify by the deadline will be given an opportunity to present oral testimony on an item following the registered speakers by raising their hand at the time additional speakers are called upon.

Each speaker shall not have anyone else read their statement and is limited to a three‑minute presentation.

WRITTEN TESTIMONY – Prior to the Day of the Meeting

If you wish to submit written testimony:

a.    fax to 768-3826 or

b.    go to http://www.honolulu.gov/council/emailph.htm to e‑mail your written testimony.

15 copies are requested if written testimony is submitted on-site.

By submitting written testimony, you are not automatically registered to speak.  Refer to “SPEAKER REGISTRATION” procedures above.

If submitted, written testimonies, including the testifier’s address, e-mail address and phone number, may be posted by the City Clerk and available to the public on the City’s DocuShare Website.

Any physically challenged person requiring special assistance should call 768-3814 for details at least one day prior to the meeting date.

Copies of the Bills and any amendments thereto are available at the City Clerk’s Office, Room 203, Honolulu Hale or on-line at http://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare.

CITY COUNCIL

CITY AND COUNTY OF HONOLULU

ERNEST Y. MARTIN, CHAIR

 

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Makua: Wildfires and Military Toxins

On September 28, a wildfire caused by an Army detonation of unexploded ordnance burned 100 acres in Makua Valley:

A fire burned about 100 acres of the Army’s Makua Valley training range Wednesday after it was started by workers who had detonated unexploded ordnance.

An Army spokesman said the detonation was part of a routine, ongoing cleanup operation. No one was injured. The fire was contained about 4 p.m.

No threatened or endangered species or native Hawaiian cultural sites were affected, according to an Army cultural resoucre official at the scene, the Army said.

This week, the court ruled that the Army failed to adequately study possible contamination of seaweed in the sea off Makua training area.  The Civil Beat reports “Army Can’t say Whether Hawaii Seafood Is Safe”:

Waianae-area residents still can’t be certain whether seafood they harvest off their shore is safe from dangerous levels of arsenic and lead. A federal judge has ruled that Army tests of possible contamination have fallen short and advocates for the community say more tests likely will be necessary.

Contractors hired by the U.S. Army to test whether 80 years of military operations had poisoned local residents’ seafood attempted to test seafood including fish, limu, sea cucumbers and octopus without diving into the water to collect specimens, according to an environmental law firm that sued the Army.

But the contractors never left the beach and the testing was inadequate, said David Henkin, an attorney with Earthjustice representing Malama Makua, a local community organization.

[…]

“What’s really sad is for a community to have to get into federal court and spend over a decade to battle the military,” said Sparky Rodgrigues, president of Malama Makua and a Vietnam veteran. “I went to battle hoping I wouldn’t have to come home to battle.”

Bullets and unexploded ordnance are strewn throughout the Makua Military Reservation where the Army has been doing military exercises since the 1920s. Residents worry that chemicals such as arsenic, lead, chrome and uranium from the artillery could be leaching into the soil and entering the ocean through runoff. Rodrigues said that the chemicals could also be released into the air and absorbed into plants.

The court order supplements an October 2010 ruling in which Mollway also ruled that the Army had failed to adequately test marine resources. While the military found high levels of arsenic in a previous test of seafood, officials didn’t test whether it was inorganic arsenic, and thus highly carcinogenic, or organic, which doesn’t pose a human health risk.

The 2010 ruling also said that the Army violated a separate settlement obligation to complete archeological surveys to determine whether cultural resources could be damaged by stray shells and mortar rounds.

The military has been banned from doing live round firing since 2004 and is unlikely to be able to resume the activities until the testing is complete.

Rodrigues said the military wasn’t being good neighbors “by contaminating the water, food source and environment.”

“The military takes from our community and doesn’t really give back,” said Rodgrigues.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

 

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Court says Army failed to test seaweed and other marine resources in Makua

The AP reports:

A federal judge has ruled the Army’s study of contamination of seafood harvested near Makua Valley was satisfactory except for two ways.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Oki Mollway ruled the Army didn’t test seaweed and other marine life eaten by residents of the Waianae Coast to determine whether they pose health risks from live-fire military training at Makua.

[…]

Friday’s ruling says the Army violated the settlement agreement by only testing species of seaweed that Waianae residents don’t eat and not testing “other marine resources” such as octopus and sea cucumber.

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Action Alert: TOMORROW Protect Farm Land in Lualualei!

Action Alert:  Protect Farm Land in Lualualei!

Wai’anae may lose valuable farm land in Lualualei if the proposed draft of the Wai’anae Sustainable Communities Plan (WSCP) is adopted by the Honolulu City Council.  The present draft of the WSCP would result in a loss of agricultural land and threaten to open the door to future industrial and urban encroachment.

The most critical issue is stopping a proposed industrial park in Lualualei (the notorious ‘purple spot’).   The majority of Wai’anae residents who participated in planning sessions and testified on the plan opposed the industrial park, but the industrial park was included in the proposed plan by the City planners.

The Honolulu City Council Committee on Zoning and Planning will have a hearing on the draft Wai’anae Sustainable Communities Plan, TOMORROW, September 29, 2011 at 9:00 am at the Honolulu Hale Committee Meeting Room.

Help save valuable agricultural land in Lualualei Valley from being paved over for an industrial park!  

Please testify in person or submit written testimony.    OPPOSE the current draft of the Wai’anae Sustainable Communities Plan.

In person (one-minute presentation): Register by 9 AM:

  • Use the On-Line City Council Speaker Registration form available at http://www1.honolulu.gov/council/attnspkzp.htm;

  • Send a fax to 768-3827 indicating your desire to register to speak, along with your name, phone number and subject matter

  • Fill out the registration form in person or call 768-3815.

Written:

By submitting written testimony, you are not automatically registered to speak.  Refer to “SPEAKER REGISTRATION” procedures above.

If submitted, written testimonies, including the testifier’s address, e-mail address, and phone number, may be posted by the City Clerk and available to the public on the City’s DocuShare Website.

Here is the link to the Council Committee on Zoning and Planning Agenda.

Some points you can make in your testimony:

  • Amend the plan to remove the proposed industrial park in Lualualei.
  1. The proposed industrial park in Lualualei is a blatant example of ‘spot zoning’ that caters to special interests over and above the long term interests of the community and violates good planning principles. The purple spot will disrupt the integrity of the agricultural lands in that area, making the area more susceptible to urban development in the future.
  2. O’ahu cannot afford to lose any more farm land.   Lualualei has some of the most fertile soil for farming.  No can eat concrete!  Stop the urban ‘cancer’ from spreading.  Young people in Wai’anae want to farm but are frustrated by the shortage of available land.
  3. The proposed site of the industrial development is known as the birthplace of Maui, the Demigod, one of the great heroes and dieties in Hawaiian legends.  Constructing an industrial park on this site would be a violation of this cultural signifcant area.
  4. There is not justification for the industrial park.  Demand for industrial park space is weak, with many vacant sites in Campbell Industrial park just down the road.
  • No highway through Pohakea pass.  This road would destroy a cultural significant area, where the goddess Hi’iaka crossed from Wai’anae to ‘Ewa.  Some say a highway through Pohakea will be a disaster like the H-3 freeway that destroyed many sacred sites and threatened endangered species.  Kolekole Road can be improved and access negotiated with the Navy and the Army for a second access road to Wai’anae.
  • No new landfills in Wai’anae.   Wai’anae is a victim of environmental racism.  Stop dumping on Wai’anae.   Ban future landfill development in Wai’anae.
  • Restore and recover military lands for environmentally and culturally sustainable uses, with a priority on agriculture and restoration of traditional cultural uses.  Keep the language in the plan that calls for the return of military-controlled land to the community.

All people have a fundamental human right to live in a clean and healthy environment and to determine their future cultural, economic and social development.   The Wai’anae Sustainable Communities Plan must not be hijacked by powerful and wealthy interests seeking to impose their profit-driven model of development that is harmful to the long-term well-being and sustainability of Wai’anae.

For more information see:

DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina

KAHEA

Hawaii Independent

 

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“Unfinished Business” – Twenty years since the Philippines kicked out U.S. bases, what is the Status of Forces?

The Interaksyon news website has an excellent two-part series entitled “Unfinished Business: Transforming the former U.S. military bases into zones of peace and development remains a challenge, 20 years after a historic Senate vote scrapped the PH-US bases treaty.”

“Unfinished Business” by Joel C. Paredes begins:

Veteran nationalist lawmaker Wigberto Tañada still vividly recalls when his father, the late Senator Lorenzo Tañada lost in the 1957 election where he ran as vice presidential candidate of Don Claro M. Recto, the standard bearer of the short-lived National Citizens Party.

Their tandem was rallying the people behind the need to fight for sovereignty against continued US intervention in the country, and for that they lost in the elections. The younger  Tañada, who by then had completed his law studies, joined the campaign sorties, convinced that they had to push for the removal of all US military installations  on the islands.

It was the least he could do for a father who had gambled his political career, leaving the Liberal Party in order to help organize an obscure party which had dared challenge the US’ continued interference in its former colony. For Don Claro Recto, their fight was one meant to liberate government from a “mendicant foreign policy.”

“Our foreign policy was conducted from the very beginning, and is being pursued, on the erroneous assumption of an identity of American and Filipino interest or more correctly of the desirability, and even the necessity, of subordinating our interests to those of America,” he said.

Roots of our insecurity

It was policy that was actually crafted on July 4, 1946, when the Philippines was granted independence by the United States, but with the condition – embodied in the Bell Trade Act – that it must accord the American entrepreneurs “parity” rights to land ownership, resources exploitation, and other business activities.

According to Philippine scholar Patricio Abinales,  the destruction of Manila during the war, the displacement of landlord power in the adjoining provinces, and the plantation  agriculture had that time posed a combined challenge enough to destabilize the country. “The United States contributed to the problem when it demanded that the new government accept a ‘free trade’ treaty  heavily favoring the industrialized United States over the agrarian Philippines.”

A year later, the RP US Military Bases Agreement was forged, giving the United States the right to maintain military bases for 99 years and their military  advisers a major role in the development of the Philippine armed forces.

The article gives an excellent history of the Phlippines-U.S. bases agreement and the successful effort to terminate the treaty.

The second article is “Economics of conversion: the best is yet to come”.

But as previously reported on this site, despite the prohibition on U.S. bases and combat operations in the Philippines, U.S. troops have been engaged in combat operations in Mindanao.

Meanwhile, women in Mindanao employed a Lysistrata strategy to end violence.  They staged a “sex strike for peace” until the men stopped fighting:

Women in the southern Philippines brought peace to their strife-torn village by threatening to withhold sex if their men kept fighting, the UN refugee agency documents in a video posted on its website.

The “sex strike” in rural Dado village on the often lawless southern island of Mindanao in July helped end tensions and bring some prosperity to the 102 families living there, said UNHCR national officer Rico Salcedo.

“The area is in a town which is subject to conflict, family feuds, land disputes (locally referred to as ‘rido’). The idea came personally from the women,” Salcedo told the Agence France-Presse.

The idea was conceived by a group of women who had set up a sewing business but found that they could not deliver their products because the village road was closed by the threat of violence, Salcedo said.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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State allows public access on Ahu o Laka sandbar despite radiation leak

Using radiation monitors not designed to scan under water, the state determined that it was safe for the public to access the helicopter crash site in Kane’ohe Bay where radioactive Strontium 90 leaked out. The Honolulu Star Advertiser reports:

The public will be allowed on the sandbar at Kaneohe Bay this holiday weekend despite concerns about low levels of radiation in the area, state Department of Land and Natural Resources Director William Aila said.

Aila made the declaration after officials from the state Health Department’s Indoor and Radiological Health Branch traveled to the sandbar off Heeia Kea Pier and were able to measure only background levels of radiation during a survey of the air from about 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday.

Testing was prompted by warnings from environmental watchdog Carroll Cox earlier this week that military officials failed to notify the state or the public about the radiation released when a CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter crashed March 29 at the edge of the sandbar. One Marine stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii was killed and three others were injured in the crash landing.

The Marine Corps denies that it had a duty to inform the state or the public about the release of the radioactive substance:

“The low levels of radiation previously detected pose no significant health or environmental risk and were not of a reportable quantity,” Marine Corps Base Hawaii said. “No radiological contamination was found at the site.”

Yet, as reported in a KHON report, the Marine Corps thought the radiological threat serious enough to remove portions of asphalt on the Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneohe that were possibly contaminated by the Strontium 90:

Due to rigorous standards, officials at Marine Corps Base Hawaii carved out asphalt that came into contact with strontium-90 after a raft used to collect the helicopter’s IBIS system was placed on what’s known as the waterfront ops area.

“As a part of the mitigation, approximately 65 square feet of asphalt was removed from an area where contaminated components were temporarily located and isolated,” said Crouch.  “Thorough inspections were done at all aircraft component locations – both during and after recovery and salvage operations – to confirm there was no remaining contamination.”

READ THE FULL HONOLULU STAR ADVERTISER ARTICLE

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Kaneohe sandbar deemed safe after radiological testing?

Ahu o Laka, a sandbar in Kaneʻohe Bay, was the site of a fatal Marine Corps helicopter crash in March 2011.  More about that crash can be read here and here.  The crash resulted in the release of fuel and a radioactive substance Strontium 90, which mimics calcium and attacks bones.   However, the Marine Corps did not report the radiological release until documents were revealed by environmental activist Carroll Cox. Another story on the radiological release is here.

According to KHON News, the State of Hawaiʻi conducted a radiological sweep of Ahu o Laka and declared the area “safe” just in time for the long holiday weekend, when boaters converge on the island.

A sweep of the Kaneohe sandbar Friday by six members of the state’s Indoor and Radiological Health Branch turned up no evidence of radiological contamination from a helicopter crash five months ago.

“We got mainly background radiation,” said Jeff Eckerd, IRHB’s program manager.  “We did not get any hits or spikes.”

The testing was ordered Thursday after environmental activist Carroll Cox received information that the CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter that crashed onto the sandbar March 29, killing one marine and injuring three others, contained an In-flight Blade Inspection System.  Within the device are six half inch pellets that contain 500 microcuries of strontium-90, a radioactive substance known to be harmful if ingested.

“It’s a bone seeker,” explained Eckerd.  “It can get in and possibly cause bone cancer in high quantities.”

The Marineʻs insist that it was not required to report the spill:

Marine Corpse Base Hawaii spokesman Maj. Alan Crouch stressed that the amount of strontium-90 released into the environment as crews removed the helicopter off the sandbar was not a “reportable quantity.”  He said some military personnel were exposed, but at minimal levels.

But the radiological hazard was so severe that the Marines excavated asphalt where a raft was parked after removing the helicopter wreckage:

Due to rigorous standards, officials at Marine Corps Base Hawaii carved out asphalt that came into contact with strontium-90 after a raft used to collect the helicopter’s IBIS system was placed on what’s known as the waterfront ops area.

“As a part of the mitigation, approximately 65 square feet of asphalt was removed from an area where contaminated components were temporarily located and isolated,” said Crouch.  “Thorough inspections were done at all aircraft component locations – both during and after recovery and salvage operations – to confirm there was no remaining contamination.”

William Aila, Chairman of the Department of Land and Natural Resources was not satisfied with the Marine Corps’ response:

However Aila expressed concern DLNR was not immediately notified about the presence of strontium-90 on the downed helicopter, even if it posed no risk to first responders or state conservation officers.

“This is state land, it’s not Marine Corps base land,” said Aila.  “We certainly registered some strong feelings about not being kept in the loop.  We are in some very stern discussions with the Marine Corps base right now and working to ensure that situation doesn’t occur in the future.”

[…]

The state Health Department is checking whether the Marine Corps was required to report the release of strontium-90 to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors the use of radiological substances.

“That is what we’re checking with the NRC,” said Eckerd, “to see if an actual notification was submitted to them.”

I’m in agreement with Carroll Cox that we should not accept the state’s testing results:

Cox however is still not satisfied with the military’s response to the release of strontium-90 and is demanding further testing.

“Create an effort to go and address this problem because people can be sickened,” said Cox.  “People can die from this neglect of duty.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Agent Orange buried on Okinawa, vet says

Months after U.S. veterans disclosed that they buried agent orange at Camp Carroll in Korea, more veterans have come forward admitting that they buried agent orange in Okinawa.  The Japan Times reports that despite U.S. denials of storing agent orange on Okinawa, a dozen veterans reported disposing of agent orange at nine U.S. military bases in Okinawa:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110813a1.html#.TkXJE9ogxTg.facebook

Saturday, Aug. 13, 2011
 
Red alert: U.S. Marine Scott Parton stands near what he says were barrels of Agent Orange at Camp Schwab in this 1971 photograph. SCOTT PARTON

Agent Orange buried on Okinawa, vet says

Ex-serviceman claims U.S. used, dumped Vietnam War defoliant

By JON MITCHELL

Special to The Japan Times

In the late 1960s, the U.S. military buried dozens of barrels of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange in an area around the town of Chatan on Okinawa Island, an American veteran has told The Japan Times.

The former serviceman’s claim comes only days after Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto said that he would ask the U.S. Department of Defense to come clean on its use of the chemical on the island during its 27-year occupation of Okinawa between 1945 and 1972. The U.S. government has repeatedly maintained that it has no records pertaining to the use of Agent Orange in Okinawa.

The veteran’s allegation is likely to cause considerable concern in Okinawa, as Agent Orange contains highly carcinogenic dioxin that can remain in the soil and water for decades. The area where the veteran claims the barrels were buried is near a popular tourist and housing area.

The 61-year-old veteran, who asked to remain anonymous, was stationed between 1968 and 1970 in Okinawa, where he drove a forklift in a U.S. Army supply depot. During that time, he helped load supplies — including Agent Orange — onto trucks for transport to the port of Naha, from where they were shipped to Vietnam.

The veteran said that in 1969, one of the supply ships became stranded on a reef offshore and he had to take part in the subsequent salvage operation.

“They brought in men from all over the island to Naha port. We spent two or three days offloading the boat on the rocks. There were a lot of broken containers full of drums of Agent Orange. The 55-gallon (208-liter) barrels had orange stripes around them. Some of them were split open and we all got poured on,” he said.

Following the removal of the damaged barrels, the veteran claims he then witnessed the army bury them in a large pit. “They dug a long trench. It must have been over 150 feet (46 meters) long. They had pairs of cranes and they lifted up the containers. Then they shook out all of the barrels into the trench. After that, they covered them over with earth.”

Dig here: In this photo taken in July, a 61-year-old U.S. veteran draws a map of the location on Okinawa where he alleges dozens of barrels of Agent Orange were buried in 1969. JOE SIPALA

Two other former service members interviewed by The Japan Times — soldier Michael Jones and longshoreman James Spencer — backed up the veteran’s claim that Naha’s port was used as a hub to transport thousands of barrels of herbicide. Spencer also said he witnessed the 1969 salvage operation to unload the containers from the listing ship, though he was unable to confirm the contents of the containers.

But the veteran making the allegations said he was sure. “They were Agent Orange. I recognized the smell from when I handled (the barrels) at Machinato (Service Area).”

Since his exposure to the defoliant’s dioxin during the salvage operation, the veteran has suffered serious illnesses, including strokes and chloracne. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) — which handles compensation for ailing service members — pays the former soldier more than $1,000 a month in medical fees related to Agent Orange exposure.

But the VA claims he was exposed to dioxin during the six-month period that he was stationed in Vietnam.

Under the Agent Orange Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1991, all American veterans who spent time in Vietnam are assumed to have come into contact with the defoliant — making them eligible for health benefits and compensation.

But due to the Pentagon’s repeated denials that Agent Orange was ever stored in Okinawa, it does not pay these benefits to U.S. veterans who claim dioxin-exposure on the island.

The veteran said he is aware of the risk of discussing the issue — especially given the sensitivity of current Japan-U.S. relations over Okinawa, where negotiations are currently under way to realign U.S. forces stationed there. “I worry if I go public with my name on this, they’ll take away my benefits,” he said.

In 2002, the prefectural government uncovered a large number of unidentified barrels in the Chatan area near the location where the veteran claims he witnessed the trench being dug. According to a source close to the Chatan municipal office, after the barrels were uncovered, they were quickly seized by the Naha-based Okinawa Defense Bureau, which is under what is now the Defense Ministry.

“I asked the Chatan town base affairs division if they had a report from the defense bureau. They said no. The town still does not know what the substance was, how the barrels were treated or if the bureau conducted an analysis of the substance,” the source said.

Over the past six months, The Japan Times has gathered firsthand testimony from a dozen U.S. veterans who claim to have stored, sprayed and transported Agent Orange on nine U.S. military installations on Okinawa — including the Kadena air base and Futenma air station — between the mid-1960s and 1975.

Among those who have come forward are Joe Sipala, a 61-year-old former U.S. Air Force mechanic, who says he sprayed the defoliant regularly to kill weeds around the perimeter of the Awase Transmitter Site, and Scott Parton, a marine at Camp Schwab who alleges that he saw dozens of barrels of Agent Orange on the base in 1971. Both men’s allegations are supported by photographs of barrels of the defoliant on Okinawa. They are currently suffering serious illnesses — including type-2 diabetes and prostate disorders — related to their contact with the defoliant, and Sipala’s children show signs of deformities consistent with exposure to dioxin. However, the VA is continuing to reject the men’s claims due to the Department of Defense’s denials that the defoliant was ever present on Okinawa.

The accounts of these 12 veterans suggest the wide-scale use of Agent Orange on the island during the Vietnam War. They say the defoliant was used and stored in massive quantities from the northern Yambaru district to Naha port in the south. The defoliant’s carcinogenic properties were not fully revealed until the mid-1980s.

Okinawans expressed concern over the issue. A retired teacher whose school was located near one of the nine bases where Agent Orange had been sprayed recently explained how several of her students had died of leukemia — one of the diseases listed by the U.S. government as caused by exposure to dioxin.

Yoshitami Oshiro, a member of the Nago Municipal Assembly, called for an investigation into the claims of Parton, the former marine, that he had seen large numbers of barrels at Camp Schwab — which is in Nago.

This is not the first time the U.S. military has been accused of disposing toxic waste this way.

In 2005, Fort Mainwright, Alaska, made headlines after construction workers discovered tons of PCB-contaminated earth beneath a planned housing unit. In May, three U.S. veterans claimed they helped bury barrels of Agent Orange on Camp Carroll in South Korea in 1978. The Pentagon is currently investigating this assertion.

Kaori Sunagawa, an expert in environmental law at Okinawa International University, expressed her concern about possible contamination by Agent Orange.

“Okinawan people need to know the truth about this issue. The government has to conduct research to see if the contamination has spread. We need to know if there is still a risk to human health and the environment,” she said.

 

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