The Military and the Environment: The Biggest Polluter in the
World!
By Karl
Abrams
Surprisingly few people are
aware of the fact that the US military is, by far, the largest environmental
polluter in the world, generating one-third of all yearly US toxic waste. This
is about one ton per minute of waste chemicals, all of which are poisonous in
small quantities to all living things, especially fetuses.
The US Military is also the largest
polluter of oil in the world, consuming hundreds of millions of barrels per year
and burning 30 percent more per year during war time. This makes the US Military
the largest contributor to global warming.
The Department of Defense controls 25
million acres of military bases and training facilities. All of which are all
laced with unexploded and corroding bombs and rockets and enough slowly leaking
chemicals to permanently poison the entire
planet.
Such military bases are spread
out among 11,000 military sites all over the US and the rest of the world. Other
countries should be concerned. The US Military is not required by law to clean
up most of the 737 overseas bases they have polluted.
In the US alone, the EPA has counted
over 29,000 “environmental hot spots” saturated with fuel spills,
dangerous heavy metals, and quickly spreading volatile solvents like
trichloroethylene and ammonium perchlorate, a solid rocket and missile fuel.
These and other chemicals have contaminated public drinking water across half of
our American states, covering 40 million acres of
land.
Trichloroethylene is the single most
widespread contaminant in drinking and farm water. It is a grease-cutting
colorless, sweet smelling military solvent used to clean metal airplane parts.
It causes kidney cancer, neurological abnormalities and autoimmune diseases. Its
slowly spreading underground plumes will cost billions to
remove.
Perchorates are known to cause
severe thyroid damage which imperils pregnant women and causes birth defects in
their unborn children. Perchlorates are present in the urine of all Americans
and are found in 90 percent of human breast milk and 90 percent of lettuce and
other foods grown on contaminated farms.
A
2005 study by the National Academy of Sciences states that perchlorates are more
toxic than the Department of Defense (DOD) wants to admit. As a result, the US
Military is now a major threat to our global environment and to domestic safe
drinking water across thousands of American
communities.
Who is safe? A whopping 10
percent of Americans ( 31 million) live within 10 miles of hundreds of superfund
toxic dumps. Unfortunately, 100 percent of Iraqis live in a completely poisoned
country. And, although billions have been spent on cleaning Iraq’s
nightmare environment, it still remains a human and ecological disaster which
may never fully recover.
Radioactive
military pollution may take centuries to be satisfactorily removed from the
environment. Sadly, the US military has already used more than a million pounds
of depleted Uranium (read, partially depleted) in their war against Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Besides its verifiable
alpha particle radioactivity, depleted uranium is a toxic heavy metal that is
known to cause DNA damage and severe birth defects in doses much lower than the
military wants to admit. Its horrors have already caused an 8 to 10-fold
increase in cancer and a 4 to 5-fold increase in Iraqi birth defects.
Weapons of this kind affect everyone.
Not surprisingly, 80,000 US vets from the 1991 Iraq Gulf War have claimed
chemical and Depleted Uranium exposure. Ten thousand vets may have already died
because of it, while many other claims are being categorically
ignored.
One contractor (Alliant) has
produced over 15 million 30-mm shells for the US Air Force and over a million
120-mm rounds for use in US tanks and howitzers. Alliant has conveniently
removed all references to uranium on their website, just in case too many
activists and concerned citizens may find out.
This deadly abuse of human rights is
one of the most serious war crimes in history. The US global empire is out of
control. They have waged unjust wars abroad and under-protected our environment
at home.
No wonder the Pentagon employs
several thousand people with an annual budget of about two billion dollars just
to deal with the legalities and lawsuits that are expected to arise from its
never ending military pollution.
The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), charged with protecting “human
health and the environment”,is quickly losing power to the Pentagon and
the current administration. Since President Bush came into office, the DOD has
been trying to win exemptions from laws covering toxic sites and clean air. The
DOD feels that it is beyond accountability and should be, especially during war
time, exempt from the law. The DOD has pressed for unregulated “Military
Readiness.”
Whole communities,
states and even the EPA have brought uncountable actions against the Pentagon
all over the country. Are we winning? Using Bush appointees and political
influences within the EPA, inspections are down 10 percent, fines are down 25
percent, military site cleanups are down 20 percent and less of the military
budget is available for appropriate environmental
cleanup.
We cannot let the military
poison us, the very people it is supposed to be protecting. We must not let the
military commit environmental crimes in this country or commit crimes against
humanity--in Iraq-- or anywhere else on this sacred planet.
Posted: Fri - June 1, 2007 at 10:12 PM