On May 1, the Navy officially closed and left the bombing range in Vieques. In the process it turned over 14,500 acres of land on the eastern side of the island to the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) of the Interior Department. Then Navy Secretary Gordon England certified on January 10 that alternative methods and sites in Florida, North Carolina and at sea will replace the bombing range in Vieques, used by the navy for more than 60 years for training and weapons tests.

The Navy's departure is testament to the effectiveness of widespread nonviolent protest, including civil disobedience resulting in jail time by more than a thousand Puerto Ricans and their supporters. "We have been successful in completing our training on the island only because of extremely aggressive and costly multi-agency security actions," wrote Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vernon Clark in a letter accompanying the certification. "The level of protests, attempted incursions, and isolated successful incursions generally remains high when Battle Group training occurs on the island." Protesters did not rest during the maneuvers in January and February of this year, when 18 people were arrested for walking onto the Vieques firing range. Community groups organized an event of "celebration with caution" to mark the apparent end of bombing.

Viequenses and supporters celebrated the closure of the range in emotional ceremonies on May 1. "I am absolutely content, and from this happiness I am getting energy for what’s ahead," said Mario Rodríguez Valledor, a leader of Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques, an island-wide coalition. Carlos "Prieto" Ventura, a fisherman whose father died of cancer, said that the triumph of Vieques "dignifies all the struggles" carried out against military bases in other parts of the world.

The actions of some after midnight on May 1 generated sustained controversy. Amid the many hundreds of people, a group of about 30 people broke windows and burned vehicles recently transferred from the Navy to Fish & Wildlife. Some observers believed the actions would not have occurred if the municipal government had included community groups in planning the celebration. Instead, Puerto Rico has said it will prosecute those who were filmed carrying out the damage.

The struggle for environmental cleanup and to gain use of the lands occupied by the navy will be difficult. Instead of transferring the land to the people of Vieques, Congress required Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service to receive title to 14,500 acres in eastern Vieques, including the bombing range where protesters set up resistance camps during 1999-2000.

By requiring the 900-acre impact area to be managed as "wilderness area" and the remaining lands to be run as a wildlife refuge, Congress also undermined environmental cleanup, since cleanup is normally determined by the intensity of civilian uses planned for the land. The Navy announced that it has dedicated only $2 million to environmental cleanup in eastern Vieques in the 2003-2004 fiscal year. That is a just a fraction of what the annual costs for cleanup of other ranges, such as Kaho’olawe in Hawai'i, where even $40 million a year over ten years has not met cleanup goals.

Vieques and Superfund

The Governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Calderón met with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Christine Todd Whitman on May 5 to request the placement of Vieques on the Superfund National Priorities List, known as the NPL. Each state and territory has the option to put a single site on the NPL at the governor’s discretion – known as the "silver bullet."

The Navy and Department of Interior began secret negotiations in February for the terms of transfer for these lands. Vieques community groups demanded participation in the negotiation process, including community hearings with federal and Puerto Rican agencies to promote public participation in decisions related to the transfer and clean up process. The groups, which include the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, Vieques Women’s Alliance, religious leaders, fishermen, veterans, youth, and others, also called for a comprehensive environmental cleanup and the clear prohibition of future military activities in any transfer agreement.

A letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed by more than 30 U.S. environmental and religious leaders and groups on March 28 called for community participation in the transition process, for a commitment that Interior would not allow military use of the transferred lands, and for land use plans that recognize the long history of local use of the lands. Unfortunately, Interior has so far shut out community participation in the transition process.

The law on wildlife refuges also contains a loophole that could result in future military uses of the land. According to the law , the Secretary of Interior will "continue, consistent with existing laws and interagency agreements, authorized or permitted uses of units... by other Federal agencies, including those necessary to facilitate military preparedness." The agreement does not prohibit renewed military use.

Problems with the Agreement

The agreement signed by the two federal agencies has a series of problems that are likely to limit environmental cleanup and community participation. One issue is that any soil sampling or other ground-disturbing activity (such as the use of plants to draw heavy metals out of the ground) in areas where there are "institutional controls" will require the Navy's approval.

Institutional controls are mechanisms such as deed restrictions or laws that, in theory, prevent people from being exposed to contamination or explosives, but in practice are often ineffective. In Vieques, the lands where this will apply include the 900-acre impact area, but probably other areas as well.

This is very troubling, because the Navy is liable for cleanup of any release of contamination that comes about as a result of activities that they approve, and their lawyers will likely advise them to deny permission for such activities. Denying soil sampling for non-Navy contractors or regulatory agencies, or pilot projects by non-Navy entities to do cleanup, could mean that we never find out what contamination is really present.

The agreement’s section on what should guide cleanup in the Live Impact Area (LIA) totally ignores important facts. It points out that the Spence Act prohibits access to the LIA, and that the land will be managed under the Wilderness Act. The text seems to suggest that actions to clean up the area would interfere with this "wilderness." But it ignores four important things:

• The LIA, having been bombed for 60 years, is totally inconsistent with the kind of land defined as wilderness in the Wilderness Act: "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man" and which "generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable." This should be a factor in considering cleanup actions in the LIA, since the restrictions on use in the Wilderness Act were designed for areas largely untouched by humans.
• The law for closing the bombing range in Vieques makes reference to possible future changes to public access, in acknowledging the possible "enactment of a law that addresses the disposition of such properties." So cleanup actions should at least consider possible human exposures to contamination in future legal uses of the area.
• This section - in fact the entire document - makes no mention of access to archaeological sites. Eastern Vieques is important archaeologically for all of the Caribbean, since it was a crossing area in pre-Colombian times.
• Regardless of whether it is legal, people are likely to go on to the Live Impact Area, as has been demonstrated in the past.

These concerns could have been addressed had there been a process for the public and Puerto Rican government agencies to comment on the proposed agreement when it was being negotiated

Sources: Vieques groups statement, 3/03; Memorandum of Agreement between Navy and Interior, 4/30/03, on FWS website (www.fws.gov/vieques.html); El Nuevo Día, 5/1, 5/6/03.