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Puerto Rico Update,
December 2000 One-Stop Shopping for Navyfacts A Response to the Navy's Vieques Website By Juan Giusti-Cordero One-Stop Shooting The Navy's new website is not its first on Vieques, which was taken off the net immediately after David Sanes' death by accidental bombing on April 19, 1999 because it was too factual. In that website, the Navy urged military contractors and foreign countries to rent its land and sea weapons ranges in and around Vieques. The moderate tropical climate is ideal for training exercises. Cancellations due to inclement weather are very rare. The Inner Range is a multi-purpose target complex located on the eastern portion of Vieques island encompassing 10,800 acres and the surrounding airspace and waters. It consists of the eastern training area, amphibious beaches, small arms range, a live impact area, and practice minefields. The complex can support air-to-ground, mine delivery, naval gunfire, artillery exercises, and subsurface assaults... The complex allows a full amphibious assault to be conducted in the most realistic training environment in the world. Below a list of AFWTF capabilities, the Navy's old Vieques website included, in 14-point boldface, this slogan: "ONE-STOP SHOPPING" Business was brisk in the 1990s: the Navy was making $80 million a year off renting Vieques to NATO allies for, in effect, one-stop shooting. The website was so "fact-filled" that it outraged Puerto Rican public opinion. In its "new" Vieques website, the Navy offers a meaner, angrier version of its 1999 report, The National Security Need for Vieques, and in press statements and Pentagon press briefings since. The "Fact v. Allegations" link in the Navy website misstates its safety record, the intensity with which the island's range has been pounded over the decades, and the extent of the ecological damage the Navy has wreaked on Vieques. Vieques Compared to U.S. Bombing Ranges The burden of hosting defense facilities is not limited to the residents of Vieques alone. Vieques is one of 56 Department of Defense live-fire ranges. Other communities in the United States have residents living closer to a weapons range than the residents of Vieques. The civilian population of Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for example, lives a mere 1 _ miles away from the target zone, while the towns surrounding the major military live-fire ranges of Eglin Air Force Base and Pinecastle, both in Florida are 7 and 8 miles away from the live-impact areas, respectively. This may be the most egregious Navyfact. Vieques is indeed one of 56 DOD live-fire ranges, yet the Navy forgets to mention that the accident that killed David Sanes in April 1999 was only the latest in a long history of the Navy's weapons accidents in Vieques. Moreover, the vast majority of the 56 "live-fire ranges" are artillery ranges only. Artillery ranges are significantly less harmful, dangerous, noisy, and environmentally destructive than ranges such as Vieques where air-to-ground or ship-to-shore shelling is also carried out, not to mention missile tests, including cruise missiles (Tomahawks), which the Navy has tested or plans to test shortly on Vieques' Inner Range. Besides Vieques, there is only one live-fire air-to-ground [ATG] Navy range on the Atlantic: Pinecastle, in the Ocala National Forest (Florida), scheduled for closing in October 1999. The Air Force has its major live-fire range, Eglin (Florida). The Army has two live-fire ranges in the East Coast (Ft. Stewart in Georgia and Ft. Bragg in North Carolina), but these are essentially for artillery practice. In the vast expanse of the U.S. West, there are only six live ATG Navy ranges (Fallon, El Centro, White Sands, China Lake/Point Mugu, Boardman, and San Clemente Island). Only four of these are analogous to Vieques in that they are also used for missile tests. In all, Vieques is only one of three live-fire ATG ranges in the Atlantic, and one of only nine nationwide. In terms of ranges that allow inert bombing alone, there are only seven additional ATG ranges on the East Coast, of all the armed services, and a similar number on the West Coast. Vieques is also used for ship-to-shore shelling (Naval Surface Fire Support, NSFS) which is not carried out in most ATG ranges. This puts Vieques in still narrower company, virtually in a class of its own. On the East Coast, the only ranges that had both types of bomb training (ATG and ship-to-shore) were closed several years ago: Nomanis (Nomans') Island off Cape Cod and Bloodsworth Island in Chesapeake Bay. Both are islands and are uninhabited, yet bombing was ceased at both sites for environmental reasons. In the Pacific, Kaho'olawe in Hawai'i was also the target of ATG and ship-to-shore bombardment, but this was ceased in 1990. Both types of bombing are carried out presently only in San Clemente, which is uninhabited except for Navy personnel who are transported daily from San Diego. In sum, Vieques is one of only two Navy ranges in the U.S. where both air-to-ground and ship-to-shore bombardment are practiced; and the other range site, San Clemente, is (at least since the Navy took over) an uninhabited island. In this context, the Navy's insistence on Vieques' "uniqueness" (a theme that the Navy often invokes to argue for Vieques' irreplaceability) has an eerie subtext. Vieques is the only inhabited island under the U.S. flag ever to have a bombing range. Even in the uninhabited islands where the U.S. has had bombing ranges, bombing has ceased for ecological considerations. Apart from Kaho'olawe, Nomanis and Bloodsworth islands, already mentioned, bombings were carried out during World War II in San Miguel (California Channel Islands) and South Monomoy Island (Massachusetts), both uninhabited. Bombing ceased on San Miguel and South Monomoy shortly after the war (the case of Desecheo island in Puerto Rico is similar). Ranges and bases Most U.S. bombing ranges, especially those with air-to-ground fire, lie deep within huge military bases between five and ten times the size of Vieques. Eglin's 745 square miles is 14 times Vieques. Dare Bombing Range, North Carolina (132 sq. mi.), Georgia's Ft. Stewart (438 sq. mi. ), North Carolina's Camp Lejeune (244 sq. mi.) and Ft. Bragg (204 sq. mi) are all far larger than Vieques. In the West, the large military bases are even larger on average. The largest is the Utah Test and Training Facility, 19,000 sq. mi., (five times Connecticut-sized Puerto Rico). The large military bases with bombing ranges often adjoin vast national forests or wilderness reserves that further isolate the bases' bombing ranges. The Pinecastle Naval Bombing Range (9 sq. mi.), for example, is located in the Ocala National Forest (600 sq. mi.). In Kauai, Hawai'i, the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility is separated from the rest of Kauai (ten times the size of Vieques, with half its population density) by a national forest and several wilderness reserves. Home on the Range Eglin Air Force Base (Florida): We can infer from maps in The National Security Need for Vieques that civilian communities around Eglin (745 sq. mi.) are further away from the bombing ranges than the Vieques civilian zone. Or is the Navy suggesting that with a far larger land area at its disposal than in Vieques, the Air Force needlessly places civilian communities in harm's way? Pinecastle (Florida): Pinecastle Naval Bombing Range lies deep inside the Ocala National Forest. Elsewhere the Navy admits that there is a "very low permanent population (about 1,500) in Noise Contour Area." According to a U.S. Forest Service map, the Pinecastle bombing range is surrounded by at least 15 miles of forest to the north, east and west. The civilian communities that lie closest to the Pinecastle range (both actually hamlets) lie south of the forest. The area surrounding Ocala National Forest has a population density is 21.8 persons per sq. miles, compared to Vieques' 535 sq. miles. Ft. Sill (Oklahoma): Here the Navy's argument becomes surreal. The Navy claims that a civilian community, the town of Lawton, exists only 1.8 miles away" from the weapons range of Ft. Sill. In the course of the October 1999 hearings before the Armed Forces Committee, Sen. James Inhofe presented aerial photos of Ft. Sill and boasted that there have been 36 deaths on account of maneuvers there, with no protest from local residents. Where others might hear bombs explode, the patriotic denizens of Lawton only hear "the sound of freedom," Inhofe urged. As it happens, Ft. Sill is an artillery range, with not even air-to-ground bombing. Second, the range is located within the vast expanse of the Ft. Sill base, an area of 147 mi. This is nearly three times the size of all Vieques. Third, Ft. Sill has a civilian workforce of over 7,500 and a payroll total of over $171 million. The overall economic impact of Ft. Sill is over $1 billion annually. Fourth, the civilian community around Ft. Sill developed after the fort, and virtually owes its existence to it. The burden is not offset The Navy brings minimal economic benefits to Vieques that might help to offset its adverse impacts. Total Navy payroll in Vieques is less than $3 million. At Eglin Air Force base in Florida, often invoked by the Navy as an area where live fire is heard by the local population, the economic impact of the base is over $5 billion a year. Pentagon spokesman P.J. Crowley said in January that the one-time economic package proposed by the Pentagon would bridge the gap between Vieques and any comparable weapons ranges in the U.S. Whether the amounts being considered by the Navy (a maximum of $90 million with live fire) will compensate the economic and health impacts on the viequenses over the long term is an open question. The amount does not even begin to clean the Live Impact Area. The Navy has not addressed the question of Vieques with the transparency that it requires. When "Navyfacts" are scrutinized, the picture that emerges is very different from the official Navy position. The Vieques Inner Range is the most harmful and dangerous weapons range in the United States or Caribbean. The intensity, complexity, and "uniqueness" of the Vieques range operations translate to greater risk of accidents, greater environmental damage to the island, and greater health risks for civilians. The Navy's insistence that Vieques is similarly situated to dozens of ranges in the United States is ill-founded. Civilian communities that lie anywhere close to bombing ranges in the U.S. never have to contend with the combined impact of ATG and ship-to-shore shelling, are never on islands, have far lower population densities than Vieques, are often military communities to begin with, and derive huge economic benefits from the military presence. The Navy's Vieques website proves once again that the Navy prefers Navyfacts. When will the Navy move beyond? |
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Fellowship of Reconciliation ©2001 Fellowship of Reconciliation
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