New York Times Editorial - An unpaid debt to Vieques

New York Times Editorial - An unpaid debt to Vieques
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 17, 2006


Vieques, a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico, made headlines a few years back when environmental activists engaged in civil disobedience aimed at forcing the U.S. Navy to stop using it for bombing practice. The navy bowed to the pressure and departed in May 2003, leaving behind 60 years worth of bomb fragments and an untold amount of unexploded ordnance.

It also left behind an obligation to clean the place up, an obligation made more urgent by the possibility of a link between the damage on the ground - the pollution of the soil and the local water supply - and a variety of physical ailments that have been detected among residents.

Neither the navy nor the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is prepared to say for sure that this link exists. The desperate poverty in which Vieques residents live may be at least partly responsible for the high disease rates, and no study by U.S. authorities has established a clear connection between the contaminants and various illnesses.

But studies by the Puerto Rican Health Department and universities show the need for further investigation. Cancer rates among Vieques's 9,300 inhabitants run 27 percent higher than in other parts of Puerto Rico. There also are unusually high levels of heavy metals in the plant, animal and human populations, as well as high levels of childhood asthma and mercury contamination.

There needs to be a more precise picture of what contaminants exist on the bombing range, and what their levels are. But such measurements have been hard to come by because the range is covered with thick jungle growth that must first be cleared - a task complicated by unexploded ordnance.

Nevertheless, the job has to be done and the necessary tests conducted, the sooner the better. And the ultimate responsibility for this falls to the navy. Without a thorough cleanup, the economic redevelopment of Vieques cannot proceed, and there will always be the fear - if not the reality itself - of a link between contamination and disease.