[CPEO-MEF] Eskimos Seek Answers to Land Contamination

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Alaska
NPR
Eskimos Seek Answers to Land Contamination
Yup'iks Suspect Health Woes Are Linked to Past Military Pollution

Nov. 28, 2003 -- Alaska has been of strategic importance to the military
since World War II because of its location and remoteness. Today, the
remnants of 700 defense sites dot the landscape, from rusted equipment
to hazardous landfills.

But the military was not alone. Alaska natives have been living off the
same land for thousands of years. It's a tenuous existence in a harsh,
isolated place, and any change to the environment is a potential threat.

Although there is no scientific evidence, the Yup'ik Eskimos are
increasingly worried that abnormalities in the fish and wildlife and
their own health problems are somehow related to the contaminants left
behind by the military. As NPR's Elizabeth Arnold reports, the people of
Hooper Bay are determined to find out themselves.

A few miles from Hooper Bay, one of 50 small villages in the delta of
the two largest rivers in Alaska -- the Yukon and the Kuskokwim -- is
Cape Romanzof. The base was one of a dozen early-warning radar sites
constructed in the 1950s as part of the Cold War military buildup. The
Air Force began cleaning up the site in the early 1980s, capping
landfills, digging up tanks and treating contaminated soil.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1523292.html

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