US Not Cleaning Up Ex-Military Base Pollution

by Danielle Knight

"From Panama to the Philippines, the US Department of Defense (DOD) hides behind a veil of secrecy and refuses to clean up most contamination generated by its activities," says John Lindsay-Poland, coordinator of the California-based Fellowship of Reconciliation Panama Campaign.

"Meanwhile at domestic bases, the DOD has undertaken a rigorous and public -- if inadequate -- clean-up program," he says. "The DOD's military bases are creating dangerous problems around the world, including toxic drinking water and harmful explosives abandoned on firing ranges."

"I believe the US military is probably the most responsible, well performing environmental organization in the world; we've spent billions of dollars on clean-up," Vest says. "Even though we are not required by law or regulation to clean up a spill on a base, in Germany for example, if the health authorities concluded that there was a significant problem, we would clean it up."

He concedes that "this is different than the program we have in the United States where we are required by law and regulation to do very comprehensive surveys, etc... there is not that type of requirement for overseas operations."

Most overseas military base agreements were signed before the current era of environmental awareness, so they had minimal, if any, environmental provisions. Also, before the 1980s, the military kept few records of the exact amounts of toxic substances and explosives used or exactly where they were used, says Lindsay- Poland.

Domestic environmental laws for base operations and clean-ups are stronger, requiring, for example, baseline studies to discover hazardous sites at bases in the United States. The disparity between domestic and foreign clean-up requirements has led to complaints by host governments, community groups, and environmental organizations, he says.

In the Philippines, for example, only after the US military evacuated the Subic Naval Station and Clark Air Base in 1992 did local communities discover that tons of toxic chemicals had been dumped on the ground and into the water, or buried in uncontrolled landfills, according to the Philippines-based People's Task Force for Base Clean-up in the Philippines, an advocacy organization.

In Panama, about 3,000 hectares of land on US-controlled bases has a high concentration of unexploded devices, contaminating agents and suspected remains of chemical, biological and radioactive weapons, according to Lindsay-Poland.

A report released in August by Lindsay-Poland's group along with Greenpeace and other environmental organizations, stated that since the 1920s the United States "maintained an active chemical weapons program" which included mustard gas and chemical mines, in at least seven military bases in Panama."

"The United States so far has largely failed to report to Panama on its use of chemical weapons on land which will soon return to Panamanian control, hindering the land's development and endangering future inhabitants," the report says.

"Quite frankly, I've been impressed with the way our people have handled the clean-up so far," says Vest. "The problem with clean-up there is that because a lot of the range is jungle, to clean up with up to 100-percent certainty we would literally have to destroy the environment by denuding the forest."

Vest adds that clean-up requirements vary depending on the agreement negotiated with the host country and the host country's own environmental laws. "Sometimes there are big contrasts -- every country is different -- each agreement is very carefully structured with each government," says Vest.

In the agreement with Germany -- where industrial solvents, firefighting foams and waste have destroyed local ecosystems near some bases -- for example, investments in base infrastructure was seen in part as compensation for the financial burdens of the environmental contamination left by the US military, he says.

Yet, this approach would not hold true for other bases where the environmental clean-up costs can amount to as much as $100 million, says Lindsay-Poland. "The clean-up of a large base could easily exceed the value of any residual infrastructure improvements," he explains. "Though infrastructure developments may be important, countries may not have the technical or financial resources to clean up after the military leaves."

He argues that Washington rewards countries that develop aggressive regulatory programs and punishes those without sufficient resources or technical capacities. "Global peers, such as Japan and Germany, are able to force the United States to clean up its toxic messes, whereas little or no clean-up occurs in less developed countries, which have neither the resources and the technology to redeem the toxic bases nor the clout to force the US military to do so," he says.

Lindsay-Poland and Vest both agree that, until Congress sets up clean-up standards or objectives for overseas installations, there is little chance that the Pentagon's foreign environmental program will equal its domestic requirements.

"In light of these problems, the United States should draft a new overseas clean-up policy that eliminates double standards and is consistent with domestic clean-up requirements," says Lindsay-Poland. He adds that while the United States has spent $102 million on overseas base clean-ups during the last four years, this is little compared to the $2.13 billion budgeted to clean-up domestic bases this year alone.

"A US government official can only act within a legal framework," adds Vest. "Technically even if I wanted to do an environmental survey at an overseas base, if I don't have any legal authority I can't spend the tax-payers money to do it."

Congress appears, however, to be heading in the direction of making it harder, not easier, for the Pentagon to clean-up environmental contamination overseas.

The 1998 Authorization Bill for the Pentagon now circulating in the Senate includes provisions that would require the Pentagon to have congressional approval even before it enters into a discussion with another country about settlement claims for cleaning up sites formerly used by the US military.

These provisions were added after $100 million was included in the budget for cleaning up formerly used military sites in Canada.

"Congress is going to make it very difficult to make any other kinds of settlements like Canada," says Vest.