For More Information:
Steve Taylor or Tara Thornton
(207) 783-5091

For Immediate Release: March 31, 2003

The Military Toxics Project, a national network of communities affected by military contamination and pollution, released a statement today from dozens of local organizations opposed to the Pentagon's demand for sweeping new exemptions from public health and environmental laws. Seventy local groups including neighborhood, tribal, and conservation organizations in twenty-seven states and Puerto Rico signed an open letter to Congress delivered on the eve of an important Senate hearing on environmental exemption provisions in the FY 2004 Defense Authorization bill. Communities affected by Department of Defense (DOD) toxic contamination and environmental degradation have been excluded from all Congressional hearings on these proposals to date.

"The people directly affected by DOD operations have a right to be heard," said Tara Thornton, Executive Director of the MTP. "In three years of hearings on military training and environmental laws, not one affected community has been asked to explain to Congress how military contamination has harmed their community or why independent regulation of DOD's environmental practices is important to their community's health and safety. Yet we've heard from a parade of Pentagon officials demanding that the military be placed above the law. Congress needs to hear from the people in these neighborhoods who are affected."

In the Defense Authorization bill for Fiscal Year 2004, the DOD proposed sweeping new exemptions covering millions of acres of military lands and waters from five federal public health and environmental laws: the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (hazardous waste); the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (toxic cleanup); the Clean Air Act; the Endangered Species Act; and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. These proposals were rejected by Congress in 2002, and were reintroduced despite the fact that the DOD has produced no quantitative evidence that environmental laws have significantly impacted military training, and provisions already exist to allow case-by-case waivers to protect national security.

The letter calls on Congress to uphold the principle that no one should be above the law. "Exempting military operations and lands from fundamental public health and environmental laws will make our communities second class citizens, stripping us of protections provided at private sector facilities," the letter states. "Our families and our water, land, and air will bear the cost of the toxic contamination and destruction of natural resources that will result if DOD's proposals become law."

The letter and supporting documents explain how DOD's history of ignoring dangers and cutting corners on cleanup endangers communities, citing military facilities in several states where the military has attempted to avoid investigation and response to environmental and public health threats. At the Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Wisconsin, the Army is already breaking signed cleanup agreements, and is asking Congress to exempt contamination from federal laws. Toxic contamination of soil, groundwater, and nearby drinking water wells at Badger and hundreds of other sites around the country would be virtually exempt from independent oversight if the Pentagon's proposals become law. Laura Olah of Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger, a group of facility neighbors, challenged Congress to think ahead: "How many wells will be polluted with cancer-causing chemicals, how many children will play in mercury-contaminated waters, and how many billions will be spent trying to heal damage to the land before we learn that the price is too high."