NRC, Activists Clash on Cleanup

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

NRC, Activists Clash on Cleanup

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Environmental activists clashed with a 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official Tuesday over cleanup 
plans that could leave buried some of the radioactive depleted 
uranium rounds mistakenly fired on the Navy's Vieques bombing range. 

``The risk of leaving a few buried in the ground is minimal,'' Luis 
A. Reyes, the commission's regional director, told a news conference 
attended by several activists. ``It should not cause problems in the 
bombing range because it is an area restricted to the public.'' 

His announcement outraged environmentalists who have been demanding 
the Navy clean up 263 rounds mistakenly fired from two Marine Corps 
Harrier jets on Feb. 19, 1999, in violation of federal law and Navy 
regulations that restrict their use to combat zones. The Navy 
recovered 57 rounds last year. 

``You are accomplices with the Navy ... to harming the health of the 
people of Vieques,'' Sarah Peisch of Puerto Rico's private 
Environmental Protection Center told Reyes. 

Reyes said the ammunition was only slightly radioactive and that 
toxic particles may cause diseases if they get into the lungs or 
other parts of the body. Prolonged contact would cause a sunburn-like 
injury, he added. 

Reyes said the cleanup equipment the Navy uses can penetrate only 10 
inches into the sandy ground while the ammunition, designed to 
explode through an armored tank, may be buried much deeper. 

The Navy would have to excavate a 200-foot by half-mile strip to find 
all the ammunition, he said. The commission would order that only if 
President Clinton orders the Navy out of Vieques, he said. Clinton 
has promised he would do that if residents vote to expel the military 
in a referendum expected next year. 

The commission would begin collecting soil, water and plant samples 
on Wednesday to determine if any radioactive residue reached civilian 
areas, he said. The island's biggest town is 11 miles away. 

But the commission had no plans to test after military maneuvers 
resume with shells and dummy bombs, probably later this summer. 

That brought objections from Doug Rokke, a former Pentagon consultant 
on depleted uranium who has backed Vieques militants: ``If those 
rounds are still coming in and blasting up dust and those (depleted 
uranium) particles, then we are looking at a serious and continuing 
hazard.'' 

The Navy notified the commission about the February 1999 accident but 
failed to tell the Puerto Rican government. The news surfaced only 
three months later through an unrelated Freedom of Information Act 
request from an environmental group. 

Two months after the accident, a Marine F-18 jet dropped two bombs 
off target in the range and killed a civilian guard. 

The incidents fueled resentment against the live bombings on a 20-
mile-long island inhabited by 9,300 people. Protesters invaded the 
range and camped out there for a year until federal agents forced 
them out last month. 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Division		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
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