The list of materials to "Containerize for Shore Disposal" includes batteries, hydraulic fluids, insecticides, pesticides, waste oil, sludge, oily solid waste, grease, propellents, PCB, and mercury in the form of fluorescent bulbs.2
Given the Navy's history, how and where are these materials disposed once "containerized"?
Out of sight, out of mind
The Navy has dumped explosives and vast amounts of other debris in the oceans for years. This is old news to NOAA, oceanographers, environmental groups, and the voiceless directly affected. NOAA has a map showing at least the last 60 years of the Navy's suspected dump zones in the Gulf of Mexico.
Greg Gardner of South Beach, Florida reports in Indian River Magazine, "Closing Fort Pierce was a classic case of dump and run....To this day, ordnance washes up on Hutchinson Island beaches several times a year after heavy surf. "
South Beach Mayor Bob Benton concurs. "They put trucks and tanks on barges and barges and dumped them in the Gulfstream....Tons and tons of Army hardware, hand grenades and bombs."
Off the California coast drums and canisters leak radioactive material since the Navy dumped them after tests conducted at its San Francisco's Hunters Point facilities.
The ongoing Superfund site clean up of former Naval Air Station, Alameda at a cost, to date, of $428 million regularly reveals mysterious contamination zones, sunken vessels, and toxic burn pits. During a recent Navy-sponsored tour, local residents watched from the bus as Navy personnel measured radiation on the vehicle's tires with Geiger counters.
Yet the vast majority of Americans know little about the Navy's dumping and warfare activities. Should We, the People, not know that the Navy's ongoing five-year warfare test plans require only one EIS per TRC? And that any EIS can be extended without informing the public at all? And that these on-going activities affect our own and all other forms of life?
Howard Garrett, president of the Whidbey-based Orca Network's board of directors, says this includes "almost everything alive in the ocean. Anything with an air pocket in their [sic] bodies." The Navy says it will conduct fly-overs and set up watchers before performing potentially lethal sonar testing. "But, [for example] Orcas are by nature stealthy hunters. They traverse the entire Pacific Ocean, so they can be anywhere. They won't be making noise so it will be extremely difficult for the Navy to know whether they are there before beginning testing."
As goes the Pacific Northwest so goes the Atlantic
Meanwhile, as research and testing continues off US coasts, the Navy recently announced its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Overseas EIS (OEIS) to evaluate:
...the potential environmental effects
with military readiness training and research, development, testing,
and evaluation (RDT&E) activities in the Atlantic Fleet Training
and Testing (AFTT) study area. This covers approximately 2.6 million
square nautical miles of ocean area, which includes Navy operating
areas (sea space) and warning areas (airspace). While the majority of
Navy training and many testing activities take place within operating
and warning areas and/or on RDT&E ranges, some activities, such
as sonar maintenance and gunnery exercises, are conducted concurrent
with normal transits and occur outside of operating and warning
areas.
(Atlantic
Fleet Training and Testing Notice of IntentAtlantic
Fleet Training and Testing Notice of Intent
)
That is, everything planned for the Pacific Northwest will be repeated and improved in the Atlantic.
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