[CPEO-MEF] Spring valley and Minuteman silos, MO

[Christine Ziebold <cziebold@ih.org>]

Title: Spring valley and Minuteman silos, MO

I am very grateful for Lenny's posting of the Spring valley Special report in the Current. I wish farmers in Missouri buying former Minuteman Silo plots could read this. History should teach us:

In 1920 the American University  made a deal that released the Army from its pledge to restore the grounds in return for the school getting to keep more than 30 buildings. It is clear now that this was very, very stupid, given the public health disaster in Spring valley.

In 2004  farmers in Missouri are buying former Minuteman Silo plots back at high prices giving the Army permanent indemnity, knowing full well the plots are contaminated. 

But not enough:

In 2004 numerous Army properties that are contaminated and known to be incompletely cleaned up and some not even properly characterized, will be transferred to the public. Add that today’s health risk values and limits are outdated tomorrow. And that environmental health effects are still largely impossible to prove. And that the majority of states have no disease tracking. Lesson? Prevention. The incredibly expensive, self-destructive war efforts at home and abroad give us less and less wiggle room for course corrections.

Not to think and act with sustainability in mind is the US's largest and sure threat.

Christine Ziebold MD PhD MPH
TCAAP RAB, Minneapolis MN



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