Decades later, U.S. military pollution in Philippines linked to deaths

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Nov. 6, 2009 - Elvira Taruc, 45, gave birth to Abraham Taruc, 14, in a camp on a decommissioned U.S. Air Force motor pool, where over 1,000 residents drank oily, rusty water from wells. Taruc was diagnosed from birth with seizure disorder and is unable to leave his wheelchair or care for himself.]


Decades later, U.S. military pollution in Philippines linked to deaths
By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, February 2, 2010

CLARK AIR BASE, Philippines - The U. S. military is long gone from bases in the Philippines, but its legacy remains buried here.

Toxic waste was spilled on the ground, pumped into waterways and buried in landfills for decades at two sprawling Cold War-era bases.

Today, ice cream shops, Western-style horse ranches, hotels and public parks have sprung up on land once used by the Air Force and the Navy — a benign facade built on land the Philippine government said is still polluted with asbestos, heavy metals and fuel.

Records of about 500 families who sought refuge on the deserted bases after a 1991 volcanic eruption indicate 76 people died and 68 others were sickened by pollutants on the bases. A study in 2000 for the Philippine Senate also linked the toxins to "unusually high occurrence of skin disease, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, cancers, heart ailments and leukemia."

The 1991 base closing agreement gave the Philippines billions of dollars in military infrastructure and real estate at the bases and in return cleared the United States of any responsibility for the pollution. The Department of Defense told Stars and Stripes it has no authority to undertake or pay for environmental cleanup at the closed bases.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67676