[CPEO-MEF] HEALTH, REUSE: "Questions linger over Kelly AFB [TX] contamination..."

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Questions linger over Kelly AFB contamination even after property  
changes hands


By Michael Barajas
San Antonio Current (TX)
October  12, 2011

Purple wooden crosses that dot this south San Antonio community are  
starting to age, their paint chipped and faded. Planted in lawns next  
to mailboxes, fences, and trees, they point to a battle with cancer  
for someone inside.

For many here, the crosses are a sign of the lasting, toxic legacy of  
the now-shuttered Kelly Air Force Base, which last year turned over  
its last patch of land to the Port San Antonio industrial park. But  
even as some residents continue to blame the neighborhood’s higher- 
than-normal rates of cancer and birth defects on chemicals that  
seeped off base decades ago, the proof is elusive. Kyle Cunningham,  
program manager at the City’s Public Center for Environmental Health,  
said last week the agency’s contract with the Air Force to study  
possible health effects from Kelly contamination, a cooperative  
agreement struck in 2001, ended last month. All the while, many in  
the neighborhood are critical that years of studies and reports have  
failed to answer that one nagging question: whether the Air Force is  
responsible for the rash of illnesses hammering the neighborhood.

"We've felt for a long time the contamination caused our sickness,"  
says Robert Alvarado, a four-decade veteran of this so-called Toxic  
Triangle. "But apparently, we’ll never prove it. We'll be dead and  
everyone will forget what caused all of this."


...

For the entire article, see
http://sacurrent.com/news/questions-linger-over-kelly-afb- 
contamination-even-after-property-changes-hands-1.1216763

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street, Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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