One of the most pernicious effects of the U.S. government's
commitment to militarism is a toxic landscape. Current legislation
pending in the House, H.R. 672, the Military Environmental Responsibility Act, would force the military to comply with environmental and public safety laws.
"The Department of Defense and Department of Energy have not been
held to the same environmental standards as everyone else, and as a
result the military continues to be the nation's biggest polluter,"
says Laura Olah, executive director of Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger (CSWAB).
Olah knows a lot about military pollution. She and her neighbors in
rural Wisconsin discovered their drinking water wells were polluted
with high levels of carcinogenic solvents. Fifty years of weapons
manufacturing from the nearby Badger Army Ammunitions Plant had
poisoned groundwater, contaminating wells more than a mile away.
This tenacious bunch of citizens has been fighting to get the
Department of Defense to clean up after itself for nearly twenty years.
"The bill will help leverage cleanup at the local Army base which
should have been completed years ago," says Olah. "The Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources and EPA finalized enforceable cleanup
orders more than a decade ago but the biggest contaminated site at
Badger still hasn't been touched."
"Explosives, mercury, solvents, and other toxins that pose a risk to
both human health and the wildlife are still found at unsafe levels in
surface soil and with the years of delayed cleanup, these contaminants
have migrated to surface water and to groundwater, polluting nearby
rural drinking water wells," she adds. "Demanding a complete and
comprehensive cleanup will ensure that future generations will not be
burdened with the legacy of pollution from Badger."
CSWAB is part of a national coalition of affected communities and
organizations that are supporting this federal legislation. H.R. 672
seeks to eliminate military waivers to key environmental laws such as
the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
H.R. 672 would "require the Department of Defense and all other
defense-related agencies of the United States to fully comply with
Federal and State environmental laws, including certain laws relating
to public health and worker safety, that are designed to protect the
environment and the health and safety of the public, particularly those
persons most vulnerable to the hazards incident to military operations
and installations, such as children, members of the Armed Forces,
civilian employees, and persons living in the vicinity of military
operations and installations."
On June 5, World Environment Day, CSWAB and other coalition members
organized a national call-in day to increase the number of
Congressional co-sponsors.
Representative Bob Filner, Democrat of California, introduced the
Military Environmental Responsibility Act on January 26, 2009. As for
April 18, there were only five co-sponsors:
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Rep. Michael Honda (D-CA)
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
This isn't the first time these groups have worked together on this
issue. The coalition sent a letter to the White House, organized by
Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger, expressing support for H.R. 672
back in March.
The letter states,
"Unregulated military projects have placed countless communities,
workers, soldiers, and families at increased risk for cancer and other
deadly disease from exposure to military toxins-the hidden casualties
here at home. Even as we write this letter, contamination caused by
munitions production, testing, and disposal is poisoning our drinking
water wells, contaminating the air we breathe, destroying our lakes,
rivers, and fisheries, and polluting our soils and farmlands."
Olah is optimistic that the legislation will eventually pass.
"Independent reviews by the Government Accountability Office have
shown that environmental compliance does NOT interfere with the
military's ability to do its job," she says. "As taxpayers, we are
paying for thousands of military cleanups like the Badger Army
Ammunition Plant, which alone may ultimately cost more than $200
million. The bill is not only in the best interest of the health of our
soldiers, civilian workers, neighboring communities and families-it's
in the best interest of our pocketbooks."
