- Originally published in Genetics & Environmental Business Week December 30, 2004
Copyright 2004 Genetics & Environmental Business Week via IncRx.com via NewsRx.com and NewsRx.net
The last major push by the U.S. Army against American Indian tribes
took place in the late 1800s. But a new report finds the military still
poses a danger to American Indians.
The
study contends the dramatic expansion of U.S. military bases during the
20th century was largely concentrated in the same remote, arid places
in the West where tribal reservations were located.
That means Indians could be disproportionately exposed to toxic
chemicals and unexploded bombs compared to non-Indians, according to
the report by Gregory Hooks of Washington State University and a former
graduate student, Chad Smith, now of Texas State University-San Marcos.
Two world wars and the Cold War "pushed
the United States to produce, test and deploy weapons of unprecedented
toxicity," the study said. "Native Americans have been left exposed to
the dangers of this toxic legacy."
The
study, published in American Sociological Review, is based on
geography, not on actual data showing whether Indians are more often
injured by unexploded bombs, Hooks said. Such studies remain to be
conducted, he said.
Using Defense
Department data on closed military bases in the Lower 48 states,
including bombing ranges, weapons testing and storage sites,
researchers discovered the locations deemed most hazardous "lay within
close proximity to Indian reservations," the report said.
The study only considered closed military bases because security
concerns make it impossible to learn of environmental hazards at
functioning military bases, Hooks said.
As a result, military facilities like Washington's Yakima Training
Center, Whidbey Island Naval Air Station and Fort Lewis, all of which
are located near Indian reservations, were not considered in the study,
Hooks said.
That raises the possibility that dangers to Indians are even greater than what was found in the report, he said.
The Department of Defense has acknowledged the problems, the report
said, quoting a 2001 department report that said Indian lands have
"hazardous materials, unexploded ordnance (UXO), abandoned equipment,
unsafe buildings, and debris."
The
government estimates that unexploded ordnance, which can include mines,
nerve gases and explosive shells, probably contaminates 20 million to
50 million acres of land in the United States and would take centuries
to clean up at current rates.
Numerous past studies have shown that minority groups often face so-called "environmental
racism" from dangerous factories and other commercial facilities because poverty limits the places where they can afford to live.
In Indian country, Indians typically did not choose the sites of their
reservations, and the toxic wastes were created not by private industry
but by the military.
This study is the
first to show that Indian tribes in remote areas have faced the same
sort of environmental discrimination as people in urban areas, Hooks
said.
The study noted the U.S. military
expanded dramatically into Indian country for much of the 20th century.
That's because they were looking for areas that were remote,
unpopulated and already owned by the federal government.
Jerry Vincent, who oversees cleanup of formerly used military sites in
California for the Army Corps of Engineers in Sacramento, Calif., said
that remote military sites that might be near Indian reservations get a
low priority for limited cleanup funds because of the low population.
"We focus on areas with the greatest risk for the largest population,"
Vincent said, naming California sites near Los Angeles, San Diego and
Palm Springs.
The counties of Imperial,
Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego in California and Chaves and
Luna in New Mexico were singled out in the new report for having large
amounts of unexploded ordnance.
The
report found that those six counties averaged 10.5 dangerous sites
each, compared with 0.12 dangerous sites for each of the other 3,130
counties in the lower 48 states.
This
article was prepared by Genetics & Environmental Business Week
editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2004, Genetics &
Environmental Business Week via IncRx.com.