Environmental impact

Contents

In the host countries of US bases, campaigners
have fought long battles to force the US military to
carry out the apparently basic task of cleaning up
its mess. The vast sprawls of US bases destroy large
areas of the environment, ranging from virgin forest
to farmland or settlements, just by being built, and
they continue to do so as they operate and even
after they are closed down.

Respect for the environment of host countries simply
doesn't seem to be a priority for the US military.
In the Philippines, for example, the US Military
Inspector General admitted that the bases “took
advantage of the lax regulatory climate”. A
Department of Defence spokesperson claimed that
it had no environmental obligations there because
its policy was of compliance with local environmental
laws, and the Philippines had none – despite the
Filipino environmental statute book amounting to
three volumes at the time. In practice, this means
that the USA has refused to take responsibility for
widespread pollution from the Clark and Subic
naval bases, poisoning ecosystems and damaging
biodiversity and fish stocks.

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace has
made the US base at Thule in Greenland the target
of one of its campaigns, with its ships observing the
dumping of hundreds of barrels of waste and piles
of metal without protection. They also measured
the results of high levels of toxic Polychlorinated
Biphenyls (PCBs) and radioactive material from
tests and accidents, including the crash of a nuclear
bomber which released plutonium, working their
way up the food chain. Such pollutants are
absorbed from the environment by shellfish and are
concentrated when these creatures are eaten by
fish, birds and land carnivores, resulting in birth
defects, cancers and other diseases in the animals
of this formerly pristine environment. Similar loss
of biodiversity is reported from Guam and
Okinawa, due to chemical pollution and the introduction
of alien species to the island by military
ships and planes.

In countries where the enforcement of environmental
legislation is stronger, such as Germany
and Italy, the US military has been on the receiving
end of prosecutions for illegal disposal of toxic
waste, and been forced to clean up the environments
it has abused. The principle of “the polluter
pays” is one which has been emphasised by campaigners
but which, at least till now, has applied
mainly in rich countries with more political clout
with Washington.

Panama

The former US military bases in Panama, which
closed in 1999, impacted on the environment in
two main ways. First, they created an enclave in the
canal area, distorting development by creating double
standards: one relatively “pristine” and wealthy
area, and another that was poor and environmentally
exploited. Second, military activities left toxic
and explosive materials, most prominently conventional
and chemical unexploded munitions on former
firing ranges. This rendered large areas of land
unusable. The presence of unexploded munitions
and chemical weapons means that the land cannot
be reclaimed for farming or resettlement.

John Lindsay Poland of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation has led efforts by US and Latin
American campaign groups to hold the US government
to its commitments to clean up the
Panamanian environment, as set down in the 1977-
1978 Canal Treaties. The severity of the environmental
impacts on Panama has brought together
the peace movement with mainstream environmental
organisations like the Sierra Club. As he
explains:

The principle of environmental cleanup is very simple,
and most of us learnt it from our parents: when
you make a mess, you clean it up. In the case of
toxic and life-threatening chemicals and explosives,
it is even more imperative. However, there is very
little political will in either Panama or the United
States to effect a further environmental cleanup of
the firing ranges, where the United States abandoned
more than 100,000 pieces of unexploded
ordnance, by its own count, and of San Jose Island,
where the Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons verified the presence of mus tard gas bombs left by the US. In Panama – like
the successful campaigns in the Philippines and
Vieques before and after – activists and local officials
focused on getting the US military out, prioritising
this over the environmental cleanup issue.
But the US took no interest in environmental
measures once it had decided to leave. Officials
and social movements in ‘host countries’ of foreign
military bases, once the pressure is on to
close the bases, actually have much leverage to
ensure that the US does a cleanup, but typically
local officials do little because they are fearful that
the Pentagon will change its mind and stay.