[CPEO-MEF] The Living Dead

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Texas
SAN ANTONIO CURRENT
The Living Dead
By Michael Cary
07/24/2003

Guadalupe and Robert Alvarado live within a hand grenade's pitch of the
chain link fence that surrounds East Kelly Air Force Base. That might
not be significant in itself, since neither of them worked there when
the Air Force was operating its war machine. But their house at 234
Baker Avenue sits over a plume of toxic waste that has spread from East
Kelly into their neighborhood - waste that the Alvarados believe is
seriously affecting their health.

Robert, 61, had to quit working because of his illness. Blind in one
eye, he says he lost his eyesight due to radiation exposure. The Air
Force painted the dials on aircraft instruments with glow-in-the-dark
radium, which is radioactive. Alvarado believes radium could have been
spilled onto the ground at Kelly. He's not the only person whose life is
going dark. "A lot of people in the neighborhood are losing their
eyesight, but we don't know what causes our blindness," he says.

The couple regularly ingest prescription drugs to treat aching bones and
other ailments. Their thirtysomething daughter, the Alvarados say, has
been told by a doctor that she has the "bones of an old man."

A few years ago, when Alamo Community College District was building a
satellite St. Philip's College campus at East Kelly, Robert Alvarado
bought a couple of truckloads of topsoil from a driver who had been
hired to remove contaminated dirt from Kelly. It was a bargain price,
and Robert spread it around in his yard. Today, the Alvarados avoid
eating pecans from a tree in their backyard, and are afraid to grow
peppers or any other produce. "We planted grass, and it died."

The Alvarados dream about selling their house and leaving the
contaminated neighborhood, but real estate laws require homeowners to
disclose the presence of toxic chemicals on the site, reducing the
chance that they could find a buyer for their 1,280-square foot home,
valued at just over $50,000.

The Alvarados are among the thousands of residents living around Kelly
Air Force Base who were left to cope with the mess - underground toxic
waste that has spread up to 10 square miles around the base - the U.S.
Air Force left behind when it abandoned the facility in the 1990s.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.sacurrent.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=9891037&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=8

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