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Today's Top News
Nation's Worst Polluters
Pentagon officials defy EPA and refuse to clean up contaminating military bases
When it comes to entities that pollute the nation's environment, the Defense Department is at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency's list. But Pentagon and military officials are defying the EPA's orders to clean up toxins being emitted by at least three military bases.
The bases -- Fort Meade in Maryland, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey -- are among 129 military sites on the EPA's Superfund list of the nation's most polluted places, 13 of which have no cleanup plans.
The Defense Department has rejected the EPA's orders to clean up the bases in Maryland, Florida and New Jersey, which EPA officials suspect are leaking contaminants into soil and the water supply.
Pentagon officials, meanwhile, have refused to sign agreements for how the other 10 sites will be cleaned up. Under federal law, the EPA requires Superfund polluters to sign agreements describing how cleanups will be conducted, schedules for the work and penalties for missed deadlines.
The EPA has the authority to lodge fines and even sue polluters that don't comply, but the Pentagon has refused to acknowledge that authority. In May, military officials sent letters to the Office of Management and Budget and the Justice Department disputing the EPA's authority to force the cleanups.
In a letter to the EPA last week, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked for a full accounting of what actions have been taken to ensure the military complies with the cleanup orders.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the committee, said Monday it is "troubling" that the Defense Department is "in flagrant violation" of the EPA's orders and that military officials are "attempting to circumvent the law and Congress' intent" by calling on other federal officials to intervene.
This defiance on the part of Defense Department officials is stunning and shameful. It should not be tolerated. Superfund sites aren't just dirty spots; they are the most toxic places in the country and pose significant risks to the health of the environment and the American people.
© Las Vegas Sun, 2008
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13 Comments so far
Show Allwhen can we have another civil war?
This is a pattern that the US military promotes worldwide. In South Korea the US military was caught dumping toxins into the Han River (Seoul) and refused to pay for the clean up or any fines associated with it. The problem is the Pentagon expects George Bush to protect them from any rules or regulations that might inconvenience them.
MARS rules means war is always for the good of a nation, and the blood profits worth killing for. It means you answer to no one, but believe your own jingoistic chants. It means freedom is just another word for better disguised subjugations of people, including those PAYING for said missions. It means KILLING nature, piece by piece, ecosystem by ecosystem.
Mars, the absolute Yang principle of macho force, cannot make life. He tends to destroy it on any and all levels. Better that Mars return to the circle, where counterbalanced by the other equally Divine personae etched into the wheel of endless time, he learn to instead use his power on behalf of PROTECTING the weak. And better yet, learning love through his sensually compelling intended cosmic partner, Venus, who also makes herself seen and felt as Demeter, Mother Earth incarnate.
The gravest irony is that force which purports to defend is actually destroying all... leaving anything it touches to waste, and of late, to radioactively decay taking countless millennia of genetic selection along for the dark ride. And this is where the lion's share of US treasure goes? A nation that has lost its moral compass by identifying with only one half of the Divine equation for ultimate power. This asymmetric navigational system has torn matter from itself (literally as per the A-bomb), and ensures a "half life" to much that manages to endure.
The United States (we-haven't-won-a-war-since korea) Military is retarded.
oops, my bad. they lost korea too!
Sounds like crimes against nature and possibly treason.
To BoricuaPower, did you mean revolution? Civil war sounds like pitting Americans against each other rather than Americans against an immoral, repressive, criminal government which our Constitution describes as a 'domestic enemy'. But it will never start if you're waiting for someone to tell you when. It will start for you when you take action. "The revolution will not be televised" (or podcast) but it is nigh.
The revolution has started, but because it is bloodless and will change the world like nothing that has happened before in human history, you aren't even aware of it.
It is time to work with nature, not against it.
Understanding the natural systems of the world and becoming true stewards of the planet is the path we all need to take. A symboitic relationship with the Earth is easier than fighting nature and just being a consumer of corporate crap...
http://www.bioneers.org/
Check it out!
hellodarling - America kicked Grenada's ass!!! Ask any Reaganazi. And if St. Lucia ever tries to let Communist doctors treat the poor, we'll kick their ass too.
You know, George . . . I am pretty sure there are quite a few bloodthirsty Americans out there who think America could have won Vietnam, too. In fact, just today I saw a huge (read: gas guzzling) Ford truck with a bumper sticker that read: "We were winning Vietnam when I left".
Once again, the US military "Defending" the country.
And george w. bush is right, the US won in Grenada, which means not a whole lot is different from before the US attacked. We all have to have standards!
At the beginning of WW2, the US military had its butt kicked by the Germans and the Japanese. They were forced to learn they had to be better. Now they just redefine success.
We don't need another civil war to move the capitol a little farther west, but that action would be merely symbolic. Great things may have happened there once, but the District has become another toxic waste dump of the soul. Everyone who's been elected, appointed, or volunteered for duty can stay. The new peoples' government can declare the old part a museum, and the old three branches can stay as the exhibits, if they can stand the well-deserved public ridicule. Let's hope we can purge this chapter of our history from our collective memories soon. Maybe we've learned all too well why they call this a Depression.
Raping the land is not what "christian" leaders would do.
What are you talking about.
The US ruling class won the war against Grenada.