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TFLAC - Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean |
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Where Will the Navy Go? …and What Will it Leave Behind? By John Lindsay-Poland Navy Atlantic Fleet commander Admiral Robert Natter confirmed on June 3 what many activists have been saying for a long time: that the Navy has other ranges where it can carry out the training it does in Vieques, Puerto Rico. "In some respects, Vieques is a terrific range. In other respects it is not as good as we have here," Natter said, referring to Tyndall Air Force Base on the Florida Panhandle. "It does not serve as a range where we can train pilots the way we’re fighting today." Natter was preempting the impact of release of a study by retired military officers and civilian analysts of the Center for Naval Analyses, which was charged with assessing the alternative sites to Vieques. Last year CNA released a preliminary studying verifying the existence of alternatives. Current legislation bars the Navy from leaving Vieques until it finds equal or better sites to train, though President Bush can issue an executive order to get the Navy out at any time. Politically, however, the CNA study and Admiral Natter’s declaration provide the White House with political cover for the decision to stop bombing Vieques. Bush has said the Navy will leave in May of next year. The Navy announced layoffs of more than 100 Vieques residents employed in Camp Garcia and at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico, as well as the termination of a grant program that gave out $2.4 million in grants to local businesses. Local activists saw the move as another indication that the Navy has given up on winning over the island’s people, which formed part of a short-lived political strategy for gaining approval to continue bombing indefinitely. No one should imagine that the Navy will stop the practice for war and destruction that is its mission in Vieques. The Navy can and does train for warfare in a variety of firing ranges along the Eastern Seaboard: Pinecastle Range in central Florida, Eglin Air Force Base on the Florida panhandle, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, as well as ranges in Europe. The problem is, local people there don’t want the Navy’s bombs, either. When civil disobedience camps in Vieques prompted the Navy to shell Cape Wrath in northern Scotland in March 2000, local activists protested, declaring solidarity with people in Vieques, the need to protect a seabird colony, and opposition to bombing in Iraq. Civic leaders in the area around Camp Lejeune, North Carolina also oppose the transfer of exercises to their communities, suggesting they may even commit civil disobedience against it. The Navy and Department of Defense have lied to them, they say. Lejeune is scheduled to receive the ship-to-shore fire training currently conducted at Vieques, including the 120 millimeter tank rifle, which Onslow County Commissioner Sam Hewitt describes as "awesome." Hewitt says the range to be used is small — so small that when naval ships fire from six to ten miles away, "if you misfire one or two degrees, you would miss the range entirely." A few years ago, an off-target round fell on a car driven by the wife of a lieutenant colonel, who was killed. "We’ve had mortar round hit our property," Hewitt told the Update. Retired Marine sergeant Larry Fitzgerald also opposes the expanded live fire training, saying about accidents, "It’s not if it happens, it’s when it happens." Hewitt and Fitzgerald are not typical activists. Fitzgerald points out that normally retired Marines don’t speak out. "We make our living from the military," Hewitt says. "We like ‘em." But "you can’t believe the upper echelon. They got too much tax money to fight you in the media." They hope to cancel the firing through rallying the community, but if that fails, the only way is to "take a boat on the water and disrupt the naval firing," Hewitt says. Pinecastle Range is located in the Ocala National Forest, and is currently the only Navy-owned range in the East where the Navy practices live-fire bombing. The Forest Service recently made the political decision to renew the Navy’s license to bomb the area for another 20 years, in spite of a petition from 4,000 local residents opposing renewal. "A couple years ago hunters found a live bomb and put it on their pickup," says Carol Mosley, director of the Florida Justice and Peace Coalition. Bombs have also fallen off-range, and planes have crashed in the area. The coalition opposes the license renewal, and plans to appeal the Forest Service’s record of decision. They’re also calling for an independent study of groundwater, since the Navy has not been transparent about substances that have been used on the range and may be contaminating the aquifer. Citizens are especially outraged by a Surface-to-Air missile target that the Navy identifies as resembling a Star of David. "Citizens are outraged by that," Mosley says. "We want it turned into something else." Legacy in Vieques When the Navy leaves Vieques, what will it leave behind? A naval ship sunk only 900 feet from Vieques’ shores was used in atomic tests in the Pacific, according to two Puerto Rican senators who in May called for an investigation into the risks to health and the environment posed by the ship. The USS Killen was located close to a nuclear explosion during the Hardtack I test in 1958, and after being decommissioned was made into a target for naval missiles off of Vieques in the 1960s, according to an official Navy history. According to marine archeologist Juan Vera, hardly any coral formations grow around the ship, in contrast to the extensive coral formations in the area and to the 1983 Navy memorandum of understanding, which claimed that the Killen was "being colonized by coral and should be left in place as a marine habitat." The ship contains hundreds of barrels filled with an unknown substance. The Killen is one environmental issue among many on the lands and waters controlled by the Navy. A study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be published in the Caribbean Journal of Science found DDT, lead and cadmium in land crabs and fiddler crabs in western Vieques, used by the Navy until last year. The land crab is a staple food for people in Vieques. The Navy used DDT to control mosquitoes and is extremely persistent. Another recent study, by Metropolitan University research Doris Caro, found traces of arsenic in fish off of Vieques. The Navy has appropriated $13.8 million for the cleanup of sites in western Vieques, but some activists believe the funds will not adequately address the pollution. Their worries are reinforced by a recent allocation of additional federal funds to Vieques, made with no democratic consultation of the island’s residents. $16 million will be dedicated to development of a new pier to shorten ferry times from 45 minutes to half an hour, while $4 million will go to cleanup of the western end. Meanwhile, the Fish & Wildlife Service has quietly asked Puerto Rico to share jurisdiction of 3,100 acres in western Vieques formerly used by the Navy. FWS has long resisted inheriting contaminated lands from the military because of the added cost of managing them. Perhaps, foreseeing how expensive it will be to deal with land laden with toxins, the federal government has decided it doesn’t need to control so much of what was used by the Navy. Sources: Interviews with Carol Mosley, Sam Hewitt, Larry Fitzgerald; Foro Civil sobre Vieques statement, 3/3/02; Panama City News Herald, 6/4/02; El Vocero, 5/21/02; Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases, http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/caab/newsletters/cab13inf.htm; US Naval Forces Southern Command statement, 5/14/02; Primera Hora, 5/24/02; San Juan Star, 5/21, 5/30/02; El Nuevo Día, 6/6/02.
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