Toxic waste at super-secret Air Force test site

[Nick Morgan <nmorgan@igc.org>]

Posting from "Nick Morgan" <nmorgan@igc.org>
Subject: Toxic waste at super-secret Air Force test site

/* ---------- "UNITED STATES: Toxic waste at super" ---------- */
 Copyright 1995 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
 Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

 *** 18-Nov-95 ***

Title: UNITED STATES: Toxic waste at super-secret Air Force test site
being kept secret by direct presidential order

By Pratap Chatterjee

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (IPS) - An environmental study of alleged
illegal burning of toxic waste at a super-secret air force base in
Nevada has been sealed for a year by President Bill Clinton.

The presidential order, a copy of which was obtained by IPS,
represents the first time that a U.S. president has made an
environmental study secret, according to environmental lawyers who
have reviewed the document.

The order -- Presidential Determination No. 95-45 -- is
dated Sep 29. Ironically enough, on that very same day, Clinton
publicly condemned his predecessors for not releasing documents on
the effects of radiation testing on thousands of unsuspecting U.S.
citizens over the last few decades.

''I hereby exempt the Air Force operating location near Groom
Lake, Nevada, from any federal, state, interstate or local
provision respecting control and abatement of solid waste or
hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of
classified information ... to any unauthorised person,'' reads the
order.

Groom Lake Air Force Base, located some 240 kilometres from Las
Vegas in Nevada, is used to test new military aircraft, such as
the Stealth bomber. Until last year the government denied that the
base even existed.

Former workers at the base allege that the military has been
illegally dumping and burning highly toxic waste used in the
manufacture of these new systems.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) agreed to do an inspection of the base after a long legal
battle waged on behalf of the workers by Jonathon Turley, a
Washington lawyer at George Washington University's Environmental
Crimes Project here.

The lawsuit names several toxic chemicals -- dioxins, furans,
methylethyl ketone and trichloroethylene -- that were brought in
regularly by truck from California by a company called NDB. Base
workers nicknamed the company ''none of your damn business.''

The lawsuit was filed in the federal court in Las Vegas by five
anonymous workers at the test site and Helen Frost -- the wife of
a worker who allegedly died from exposure to the incineration of
toxic waste.

Frost says that her husband would come from work in the 1980s
saying, ''my eyes are on fire, my face is on fire.'' She says he
would feel cold even in the hot desert sun and that air force
officials refused to allow him to use protective clothing or

Towards the end of the 1980s, Frost lost weight and his stomach
started to swell up. His skin developed weeping sores and began to
crack and bleed. He was almost blind by the time he died in 1989,
according to his widow.

An analysis of Frost's body tissues by Peter Kahn, a professor
at Rutgers University's department of biochemestry, showed
potentially lethal levels of dioxins and dibenzo~urans, according
to court documents.

Turley suspects that the new EPA studies will back up Kahn's
analysis, but government officials are now refusing to release the
inspection results. As a result, the two sides were forced back to
court.

It ruled that the EPA had to release the document unless the
president deemed that the release of the documents would
jeopardise national security.

The presidential order indicates that government officials have
been successful in keeping the findings secret. The government is
now trying to discover who, besides Frost's widow, is suing the
base, according to lawyers familiar with the case.

Last month, Turley identified one of the anonymous workers --
Walter Kasza -- two months after he died. But Turley says he would
rather go to jail than reveal the identity of his other clients.

The court has ordered Turley not to discuss the case with the
media. In addition, all information in Turley's office has been
classified secret, and only his own staff are allowed to enter the
room.

Government officials have not been available for comment about
the EPA inspection or the presidential order because most federal
government offices in this country have been shut down as a result
of the budget crisis.

Information about Groom Lake, which was first set up in the
1950s, is hard to come by. The base went ''deep black'' -- which
means top secret -- in 1984 under the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Articles in aerospace magazines do name Groom Lake as the
testing site for the U-2, A-12 and SR-71 spy planes in addition to
the F117A Stealth.

Rumours about what happens at the site, however, have never
been in short supply. Visitors report a number of unexplained
sightings of mysterious flying objects from Coyote Summit, which
overlooks the base but is not controlled by the Air Force.

John Pike, space policy expert for the Federation of American
Scientists, say that a number of the mysterious objects are former
Soviet weaponry that are being analysed by the Air Force.

Mark Farmer, an investigator who writes for Covert Action
Quarterly magazine, says that the Air Force is definitely testing
a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles, although he is not certain
that they are being tested at Groom Lake.

More speculative is the talk of the ''Black Manta'' -- a slower
version of the Stealth -- and the ''Pumpkin Seed'' -- a diamond-
shaped attack plane that carries up to 100 miniature nuclear
warheads and flies at ten times the speed of
sound. (ENDS/IPS/PC/JL/95)

Origin: Rome/UNITED STATES/
 ----

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